Facial Recognition Ruled Out for Local CCTV Network
Artificial intelligence will be part of ongoing upgrade
Hammersmith & Fulham Council's CCT control room
July 25, 2024
Hammersmith and Fulham’s extensive CCTV network will not be adopting any facial recognition technology, a senior officer has confirmed. The borough has the highest number of cameras per person compared to other UK local authorities, which it says has enabled it to tackle crimes including anti-social behaviour and illegal waste dumping.
In the 2023/24 financial year, council officers assisted the Metropolitan Police in arresting 535 people, with camera operators capturing a total of 4,896 incidents.
Neil Thurlow, director of public protection at Hammersmith and Fulham, has now clarified that an ongoing upgrade of the network will not include any facial recognition technology. While AI will be used, he said the service will comply with the ‘highest ethics’.
In a report presented to the council’s Social Inclusion and Community Safety Policy and Accountability Committee on Wednesday night (24 July), officers wrote the borough’s CCTV network ‘is one of the largest and most substantive systems in the UK’, totalling more than 2,000 cameras in the public realm and across council housing estates.
The service has worked alongside Kensington and Chelsea Council for several years, and a partnership with Westminster City Council was launched earlier this week. The whole network is operated and monitored from a control room in Hammersmith.
In the 2023/24 financial year, £1.9 million was spent improving the programme. The full four-year upgrade scheme is due to run until 2025/26, with a total allocated budget of £5.4 million.
At last night’s meeting, Mr Thurlow said the work includes the implementation of AI. By way of demonstrating its benefits, he said if operators were searching for someone in a red dress walking down King Street, they could input that information and the network would be able to use that to locate the individual.
Cllr Omid Miri interjected to ask: “Can we make sure when the AI is implemented, and I’m sure this will be the case, but that complies with all the ethical standards that are very important?”
Mr Thurlow confirmed the programme will comply with the ‘highest ethics’, adding: “It’s not going to be used for spyware or anything like that at all.”
Committee chair Cllr Nikos Souslous later raised the pushback by some groups, including local authorities, on the Met Police using facial recognition technology. “Is that something that we know has been happening in our borough, is the Met Police using facial detection cameras, is it something that we expect our cameras will be using?”
Mr Thurlow said the Met has used it once recently on Hammersmith Broadway, leading to around a dozen arrests of wanted offenders, with further uses anticipated over time.
On the council’s CCTV network, he said: “Are we going to be using facial recognition in our system? No.”
The council’s report lists that, for the year ahead, the target is to complete tasks including the upgrade of power works in Fulham, and the remaining 50 per cent of works in Hammersmith.
Ben Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter