THE use of facial recognition technology by a South Wales police force has been ruled unlawful.

This morning the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of civil rights campaigner Ed Bridges, 37, who had his face scanned while he was Christmas shopping in Cardiff in 2017 and at a peaceful anti-arms protest outside the city’s Motorpoint Arena in 2018.

The activist took his case, arguing that the use of automatic facial recognition (AFR) by South Wales Police caused him “distress” – believed to be the world’s first over police use of such technology – to the Court of Appeal on five grounds, after his case was previously rejected by the High Court.

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In Tuesday’s ruling, the Court of Appeal allowed Mr Bridges’ appeal on three grounds, but found against him on two.

In a statement, Mr Bridges said: “I’m delighted that the court has agreed that facial recognition clearly threatens our rights.

“This technology is an intrusive and discriminatory mass surveillance tool.

“For three years now South Wales Police has been using it against hundreds of thousands of us, without our consent and often without our knowledge. We should all be able to use our public spaces without being subjected to oppressive surveillance.”

Megan Goulding, a lawyer for civil rights group Liberty, which supported Mr Bridges in his claim, said: “This judgment is a major victory in the fight against discriminatory and oppressive facial recognition.

“The court has agreed that this dystopian surveillance tool violates our rights and threatens our liberties. Facial recognition discriminates against people of colour, and it is absolutely right that the court found that South Wales Police had failed in their duty to investigate and avoid discrimination.

“It is time for the government to recognise the serious dangers of this intrusive technology. Facial recognition is a threat to our freedom – it has no place on our streets.”

In a statement, South Wales Police said it "welcomes" the judgment, and would not be appealing.

Chief constable Matt Jukes said: “The test of our ground-breaking use of this technology by the courts has been a welcome and important step in its development. I am confident this is a judgment that we can work with.

"Our priority remains protecting the public, and that goes hand-in-hand with a commitment to ensuring they can see we are using new technology in ways that are responsible and fair."

He added: "We are pleased that the court has acknowledged that there was no evidence of bias or discrimination in our use of the technology. But questions of public confidence, fairness and transparency are vitally important, and the Court of Appeal is clear that further work is needed to ensure that there is no risk of us breaching of our duties around equality. In 2019 we commissioned academic analysis of this question and although the current pandemic has disrupted its progress, this work has restarted and will inform our response to the Court of Appeal’s conclusions.”

The force added it remains "completely committed" to the use of the technology, and added, of the 61 arrests as a result of its use, none have been found to be unlawful.

South Wales Police Deputy Chief Constable Jeremy Vaughan, who is the national policing lead for facial recognition, has already been working with the Home Office, police forces and other law enforcement agencies to look at how the deployment of facial recognition technology is done consistently across policing in England and Wales.

DCC Vaughan said: “The whole aim of facial recognition technology is to keep the public safe and assist us in identifying offenders and protecting communities from individuals who pose a risk.

“I believe the public will continue to support our use of all the available methods and technology to keep them safe, providing what we do is legitimate and proportionate.

“There is nothing in the Court of Appeal judgment that fundamentally undermines the use of facial recognition to protect the public. This judgement will only strengthen the work which is already underway to ensure that the operational policies we have in place can withstand robust legal challenge and public scrutiny.”