High Court upholds Metropolitan Police live facial recognition policy

In R (Thomson and Carlo) v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis ([2026] EWHC 915 (Admin)) (https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/AC-2024-LON-001764-R-Thompson-and-Carlo-version-for-hand-down-21-04-2026.pdf), the court rejected arguments that the September 2024 policy leaves police officers with unlawfully broad discretion as to when, where and against whom LFR may be deployed.

The claim concerned the lawfulness of the MPS’s current LFR policy, adopted on 11 September 2024 following a review of earlier iterations. The claimants did not argue that the use of LFR is unlawful in principle, nor that the police lack powers to deploy it. Instead, they contended that the policy fails to meet the required “quality of law”, because it does not sufficiently constrain discretion, rendering interferences with Convention rights not “in accordance with the law” or “prescribed by law”.

LFR is used by the police to assist in the prevention and detection of crime, the location of wanted or missing persons, and the protection of the public. It operates by scanning faces in public places and comparing biometric data with images held on police watchlists. Where no match is generated, biometric data is deleted immediately.

The first claimant, Shaun Thompson, was mistakenly identified during an LFR deployment near London Bridge in February 2024, when he was matched to an image of his brother. He was stopped, questioned and asked to prove his identity. The second claimant, Silkie Carlo, is Director of the civil liberties organisation Big Brother Watch and argued that LFR deployments risk deterring lawful protest and expression.

The claim was advanced on two grounds: first, that the policy breaches Article 8 ECHR because interferences with private life are not “in accordance with the law”; and second, that restrictions on Articles 10 and 11 rights are not “prescribed by law”. It was common ground that both grounds raised the same core issue: whether the policy provides sufficient clarity, foreseeability and safeguards to prevent arbitrary decision making.

The claimants relied heavily on the Court of Appeal’s decision in R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police, arguing that the deficiencies identified there persisted under the MPS’s revised framework.

The September 2024 policy restricts the use of LFR to three defined “Use Cases”:
• crime hotspots and missing person hotspots;
• protective security operations, including major events; and
• deployments based on specific intelligence indicating that a sought person is likely to be present at a particular location.

Outside those use cases, LFR cannot be deployed. The policy also contains detailed criteria governing watchlists, geographical limits, senior authorisation, oversight and review. All deployments are subject to a mandatory proportionality assessment, requiring express consideration of the impact on Convention rights, including the risk of chilling lawful protest.

The court was critical of aspects of the claimants’ evidence. Significant parts of Ms Carlo’s witness statements were excluded or given little weight on the basis that they amounted to advocacy or opinion rather than admissible factual evidence. Permission was also refused to rely on expert evidence addressing the reach and effectiveness of LFR, which the court held did not assist in determining the legal issues before it.

Lord Justice Holgate and Mrs Justice Farbey unanimously dismissed the claim.

The court held that the policy, read fairly and as a whole, contains “clear, interlocking and cumulative constraints” on the use of LFR. The strict limitation to specified use cases, the detailed rules on watchlists and locations, and the requirements for senior authorisation and oversight meant that decision making was governed by the policy rather than individual “whim”.

While acknowledging that the policy confers discretion, the court emphasised that Convention law does not require discretion to be eliminated altogether. The question is whether it is sufficiently constrained to guard against arbitrariness. In the court’s view, the MPS framework met that standard and was “a far cry” from decision making based on hunch or instinct.

The judges also rejected the argument that references to “operational experience” rendered the policy unacceptably vague. Properly construed, the phrase referred to corporate, evidence based operational judgement applied alongside crime data and intelligence, not the personal instincts of individual officers.

Addressing the reliance on Bridges, the Divisional Court held that the shortcomings identified in that case - in particular, the absence of clear criteria governing watchlists and locations - do not arise under the current policy. The safeguards now in place were materially different, and the position of LFR within the spectrum of police powers had not fundamentally changed.

The court accepted that LFR deployments may engage Articles 10 and 11, especially in the context of protests. However, it attached significance to the policy’s express requirement to assess and address the risk of chilling effects, concluding that this provided a real and effective safeguard.

No free standing challenge was brought under the Public Sector Equality Duty. Although concerns were raised about potential disproportionate impacts on ethnic minority communities, the court held that these did not undermine the lawfulness of the policy on the evidence and arguments advanced.

The judges therefore concluded that the MPS LFR policy has sufficient clarity, foreseeability and safeguards to meet the “quality of law” required by the Convention. The judicial review was accordingly dismissed.

Responding to today’s judgment, claimant and director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo, said that she and Shaun Thompson planned to appeal. “This is a disappointing judgment but the fight against live facial recognition mass surveillance is far from over.

“There has never been a more important time to stand up for the public’s rights against dystopian surveillance tech that turns us into walking ID cards and treats us like a nation of suspects.

“Innocent people deserve clear and strict protections from live facial recognition cameras, which should be reserved for the most serious cases rather than used to scan millions of people, and that is what the appeal will seek to achieve.

“This legal challenge, which was made possible by concerned members of the public, has already led to a change in the Met’s facial recognition policy and to a payment awarded to Mr Thompson who was misidentified by the tech and threatened with arrest.

“He has been courageous in challenging the police, defending his rights and now standing up for the rights of millions of others in the country.”

Claimant Shaun Thompson said: “I’ve considered the court’s judgment today and decided to appeal it to protect Londoners from facial recognition being used for mass surveillance and leading to situations like mine, where I was misidentified, detained and threatened with arrest.

“No one should be treated like a criminal due to a computer error. I was compliant with the police but my bank cards and passport weren’t enough to convince the police the facial recognition tech was wrong. It’s like stop and search on steroids. It’s clear the more widely this is used, the more innocent people like me risk being criminalised.

“My daily work getting knives off the streets with the Street Fathers proves we can keep London safe through community action, not by spying on the public with cameras that real criminals already know how to dodge.”