Privacy groups criticise increased searches of the passport and immigration databases.
There has been a rapidly increased use of police mass facial recognition searches against the passport and immigration databases in the past five years.
According to a joint statement by Big Brother Watch and Privacy International, the number of searches of the passport database has “skyrocketed” from two in 2020 to 417 in 2023. Searches of the immigration database increased from 16 in 2023, to 102 in 2024.
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by Big Brother Watch found that the population-level databases have been secretly enrolled in a facial recognition library without parliament’s awareness or any public policy to govern how and why searches can be undertaken.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, said the collection of passport photos and secretly turning them into mugshots for “a giant, Orwellian police database without the public’s knowledge or consent” has no democratic or legal mandate.
“This astonishing revelation shows both our privacy and democracy are at risk from secretive AI policing, and that members of the public are now subject to the inevitable risk of misidentifications and injustice. Police officers can secretly take photos from protests, social media, or indeed anywhere and seek to identify members of the public without suspecting us of having committed any crime.
“This is an historic breach of the right to privacy in Britain that must end. We’ve taken this legal action to defend the rights of tens of millions of innocent people in Britain.”
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
