A guide to policing databases and predictive policing tools

Long Read

Post date

29th June 2021

graphics of police looking at map and monitor

Explainer

How the 'Law Enforcement Data Service' (LEDS) can be used at protests

This guide explains how policing databases can be used at a protest and negatively affect individuals' lives (UK edition)

Explainer

How predictive policing can be used at protests

The police may use facial recognition technology, IMSI catchers, geo-location technology and other tools to identify protesters and add them to databases or watchlists, feeding into their 'predictive policing' tools. Here's what you need to know (UK edition).

As well as surveillance of your face and body, and surveillance of your phone, police forces also build databases and data sets that can enable them to monitor, track and identify people at protests.

Details of people stored in these databases and data sets can be used as watchlists at protests. The police might also use facial recognition technology, IMSI catchers or geo-location technology to identify protesters and add them to these databases or watchlists.

Our campaign

The End of Privacy in Public

Free to Protest (UK)

UK MPs ignore concerned constituents questions about Facial Recognition Technology

In this piece, we unpack the responses received from UK Members of Parliament between November 2023 and June 2024 following the initial launch of our campaign “The End of Privacy in Public”, and discuss the current state of regulation of FRT in the UK. In doing so, we reiterate our call for FRT’s use to be effectively regulated.

Advocacy

Facial recognition camera scanning a shoppers face in supermarket

Joint letter to UK retailers regarding the potenital use of facial recognition technology (FRT) within their stores

Privacy International co-signed a letter, alongside UK civil society organisations campaigning against the use of FRT in the UK, calling on retailers to refrain from the use of FRT in their stores.

Advocacy

Close up of individual's face with fingerprint replacing facial features

Joint letters to the Information Commissioner and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police on use of PimEyes

Privacy International, alongside a coalition of UK based NGOs campaigning against facial recognition technology (FRT), co-signed a letter to the Information Commissioner and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service (the Met), regarding a report exposing the Met's use of PimEyes, a facial recognition search engine.