Live facial recognition

Met makes one arrest every 35 minutes during live facial recognition pilot

More than 170 wanted criminals have been arrested during a live facial recognition pilot in Croydon, which saw static cameras deployed for the first time.

New results, released today by the Metropolitan Police, show that during the six-month pilot, crime in the area fell by 10.5 per cent compared to the same period last year, with the biggest reduction seen in violence against women and girls’ offences, which were down by 21 per cent.

Those arrested included people wanted for kidnap, rape and serious sexual assault, providing further evidence of the effectiveness of live facial recognition (LFR) at removing dangerous offenders from our streets.

LFR deployments typically require the use of a dedicated van which houses both cameras and the computer equipment required to use them.

For the duration of the pilot – which ran from October 2025 to March 2026 – cameras were instead mounted to existing infrastructure such as lampposts, allowing officers to run deployments in a more agile way.

Officers used the static cameras as part of 24 separate operations and made 173 arrests – the equivalent of one arrest every 35 minutes.

Live Facial Recognition Technology was also deployed yesterday, 13th May to crime hotspots in Enfield borough.

The people we are seeking to locate at crime hotspots are set out in our policy, link below:-

Live Facial Recognition | Metropolitan Police