For the purposes of these principles, we use the following definitions:

Real-time or live facial recognition:

  • Real-time or live facial recognition involves comparing a live camera video feed of faces against a predetermined watchlist to find a possible match that generates an alert for police or the user. Such systems involve capturing people’s biometric facial data in a live video feed, comparison against a watchlist and possible identification, all of which occur instantaneously, near-instantaneously or without a significant delay. Examples:
    1. The use of live FRT by London’s Metropolitan Police in the UK.
    2. The use of live FRT by US retail chain Rite Aid.
    3. The use of live FRT by authorities in Moscow, Russia.

Retrospective remote facial biometric identification:

  • Retrospective facial recognition involves comparing images of faces of unknown people against a reference image database of known people in order to attempt to identify the former. For each search the system returns a list of potential candidates accompanied by similarity scores. There is no guarantee that the person whose identity is being sought will be in the reference database or that, if the “true match” is in the reference database, they will be given the highest similarity score on the candidate list; nor is there any guarantee that the person running the FRT search will choose the correct candidate if they do appear in the candidate list.
    • Examples:
      1. The use of FRT to track down a demonstrator in Moscow.
      2. The use of FRT which led to the misidentification and wrongful arrests in the USA of Robert Williams, Michael Oliver, Nijer Parks, Randal Reid, Alonzo Sawyer, Porcha Woodruff and Harvey Eugene Murphy, Jnr.
      3. The use of FRT in Argentina when Guillermo Ibarrola was misidentified and wrongfully arrested, detained and accused of carrying out an armed robbery in a city he had never visited, 600 kilometres from his home city of Buenos Aires.

Operator-initiated facial biometric identification system:

  • Operator-initiated facial recognition is a near real-time use of FRT, where an officer takes a photograph of a person on a mobile device and uses that image for an immediate search against a reference image database. Similar to retrospective FRT, each search will return a candidate list with a similarity score.
    • Examples:
      1. The use of the Blue Wolf facial recognition system by Israeli authorities against Palestinians.
      2. Use of operator-initiated FRT by South Wales Police.