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Liberties Group Slams UK Police for Retaining Photos of Non-Criminals

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Running a database of photographs of innocent people and those cleared of offenses erodes public trust in law enforcement, the Big Brother Watch civil liberties group underscored.

British Home Office - Sputnik International
Official Says UK Police's Database Full of Innocent People's Profiles
MOSCOW, (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko — Retention of photographs of innocent people in the database of England and Wales police is an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties that undermines public confidence and, thus, impairs the effectiveness of the database, the Big Brother Watch civil liberties group told Sputnik on Tuesday.

According to the media reports, police in England and Wales operate a facial recognition database that includes up to 18 million photos, including those of innocent people and persons cleared of offenses. However, in 2012 the high court called for an urgent review of the Metropolitan Police policies after two people sought removal of their photos from the database.

"The fact that two years have passed since the retention of these photographs was ruled illegal and nothing has yet been done to rectify that, is absolutely unacceptable. Any positive aspects of this database will be entirely undermined if the public cannot have faith that the data held is being done so legally, and only when necessary and proportionate," Emma Carr, director of Big Brother Watch group that advocates civil liberties and privacy freedom, told Sputnik.

A record number of complaints about law enforcement have been made in the United Kingdom in 2013-14, representing a 52-percent increase since 2004 - Sputnik International
Complaints About UK Police Rise by 52 Percent Over Decade
According to the reports, several British members of parliament, including Liberal Democrat David Laws, are demanding urgent action to regulate the usage of the database.

"It is unacceptable for innocent people to be treated in the same way as those who [are] found to be guilty. This database, as it stands, does just that," Carr stated.

Facial recognition systems allow for security organizations to automatically identify a person by comparing information from a graphical source with a facial database. A number of police forces in the United Kingdom have adopted the technology despite concerns over its implications for privacy. It is widely used by the Metropolitan Police, Leicestershire Police, UK Border Agency, British security agencies and airport security organizations.

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