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Met Police to expand static live facial recognition across London's West End

London's Metropolitan Police plans to expand static live facial recognition deployments in the West End and Soho by the end of 2026.

2026-06-23CC-BY-4.0law-enforcementlive-facial-recognitionpublic-spaceunited-kingdom

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Facial Recognition

Key Facts

  • The expansion builds on a Croydon pilot that the Met says produced 173 arrests across 24 operations.
  • The static cameras can be mounted on street furniture and monitored remotely rather than relying only on dedicated LFR vans.
  • Each deployment uses a bespoke watchlist created shortly before the operation and deleted afterward, according to the Met's stated safeguards.

Card Text

The expansion is a notable deployment pattern for public-space biometrics: live facial recognition is shifting from mobile vans to fixed but repositionable camera infrastructure in dense urban zones.

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