Data Card
Devon and Cornwall Police plan first live facial recognition deployment
Devon and Cornwall Police prepared their first operational live facial recognition deployment around the Boardmasters festival in Newquay, using mobile camera units in public town corridors.
2026-08-05CC-BY-4.0live-facial-recognitionfestivalsuk-policingwatchlists
About
Key Facts
- Mobile units are sited in public town corridors rather than the event perimeter.
- Stated aims cover violence against women and girls, organised crime, sexual offences, and drug trafficking; watchlist size and composition were not disclosed.
- A trained officer reviews each possible match before approach, and images of non-matching people are deleted automatically within seconds.
Card Text
Placing cameras in town corridors rather than at the event boundary widens the population scanned well beyond festival attendees. That distinction is central to proportionality assessments and is often lost in describing a deployment by the event it accompanies.