Met Police to ‘trial’ handheld facial recognition tech

The Metropolitan Police are set to trial handheld facial recognition technology that will allow officers to conduct biometric checks on the spot, the Mayor of London has confirmed.

Known as Operator-Initiated Facial Recognition (OIFR), the technology uses a mobile phone app to capture images of people’s faces and compare them to police databases in real-time.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said that OIFR would allow officers to check and verify the details of any individuals stopped, instead of having to arrest them and take them to a police station. He added that the six-month pilot involves around 100 devices, with approximately £763,000 allocated to the programme.

However, the Met’s website still states at the time of publication that it “does not presently use the so-called operator-initiated facial recognition”, with the information only becoming public after Khan was pressed about the technology’s use by Green London Assembly member Zoe Garbett. She added during the meeting that this development is “alarming” and changes the relationship between the police and the public.

The OIFR trial revelation comes as the Home Office is still formulating a response to a consultation it held on a new legal framework for facial recognition technology, and the High Court is still deliberating on a judicial review over whether the Met has used the live version of the technology lawfully. So far, only a limited number of forces have used OIFR technology, via a joint trial between South Wales, Gwent and Cheshire Police.

Commenting further on the Met’s planned trial, Garbett said it is “shocking” that the information about the trial was only divulged through a Mayor’s question time.

“Londoners deserve transparency when it comes to such a fundamental expansion of police powers. What’s even more concerning is the Met’s website explicitly says they do not use this technology,” she said.

“We already have no clear legal framework for live facial recognition and now it’s being further expanded with handheld devices that allow officers to walk up and scan people’s faces. In Britain, no one has to identify themselves to police without very good reason and this unregulated technology threatens that fundamental right.”

She added that with the government’s consultation only closing on 12 February 2026, pressing ahead with the expansion of facial recognition “makes a mockery of the process – what’s the point of asking for public views if the expansion of surveillance technology continues regardless? The rapid and unchecked deployment of this technology must stop and robust protections must be put in place to safeguard our rights.” 

Garbett previously called for the force to immediately halt its deployments of LFR in early February 2026, citing its disproportionate effects on Black and brown communities, a lack of specific legal powers dictating how police can use the tech, and the Met’s opacity around the true costs of deploying.

Khan said that both the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the London Policing Ethics Panel would oversee the use of the technology, ensuring its use was “right and proportionate”, and that because it was only a pilot, “it may not be rolled out”.

While Khan noted that OIFR captured-images are compared to custody records held by the Met, millions of custody images continue to be held unlawfully in the UK-wide Police National Database (PND), despite the High Court ruling in 2012 that images of unconvicted people must be deleted.

Khan previously told the London Assembly that if the Met were to deploy operator-initiated facial recognition, “I would expect the MPS to consult stakeholders, including the London policing ethics panel, as well as undertake careful consideration of legal, policy, community, data protection and ethical impacts.”

Lindsey Chiswick, the Met’s lead for facial recognition, who was present in the LFR judicial review proceedings on behalf of the force, said: “We are set to trial operator‑initiated facial recognition, an innovative tool which will help our officers take photos to help confirm the identities of people quickly and accurately, avoiding the need to detain people for longer than needed.

“This will initially be rolled out to a small number of officers while we test the technology. If an individual has their photo taken and there is no match, then their biometric information will be deleted straight away.”

Jasleen Chaggar, a legal and policy officer at Big Brother Watch, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) there was no policy in place for the OIFR and that the police were using the public like “guinea pigs” to test their surveillance technology.

“Placing a tool in the hand of officers which can lift the veil of anonymity in public in a matter of seconds by simply pointing a phone at a face is a disaster for civil liberties,” she said, adding that the technology could be used to “unlock a vast array of personal records”.

She added: “The Met has a history of rolling out facial recognition so-called ‘pilots’ that quietly become permanent fixtures – they must immediately halt OIFR trials until the Home Office bring forward clear laws that strictly limit and safeguard against its everyday use.”