The prime minister wishes to see more facial recognition technology following riots in Southport and elsewhere

August 2024

Following the terrible murder of three little girls and the wounding of eight others in Southport last week, riots have broken out in various parts of the UK. A mixture of extremists and far right groups have assembled outside mosques and refugee centres to engage in violent acts including attacks on the police. These groups have claimed links to asylum seekers and immigrants to the murders and this has led them to take these violent actions. Several people phoning in the the BBC’s Any Answers programme on Saturday 3 August, made claims linking the murders to boat people even though the young man who has been charged is from Cardiff and is not a boat person.

People have been rightly outraged by the high-jacking of the tragic deaths of the three little girls by large numbers of far right groups many of whom travel to the area with the intention of engaging in violence. There is a natural desire to see these people to be identified, arrested and brought to justice. There is great pressure on the new government to ‘do something’ and the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have made statements. The latter has called for the greater use of facial recognition technology (FR) in the task of identifying ‘thugs’.

We should be very wary of going down this path. It has echoes of Jeremy Bentham’s idea of a panopticon in the nineteenth century: a prison where prisoners could be watched at all times. It fed into the idea of complete control by governments or their agents as a means of social control.

There are several reasons for being wary of introducing more FR. Although it could be used to locate and arrest those involved in the current mayhem or any future outbreaks, it would introduce into the public realm greater powers for the police and politicians. The last decade has seen a number of laws enacted to prevent or seriously limit protests and demonstrations. Britain has had a history of such protests and they have led to improvements in the role of women in society, better housing, an end to slavery and a range of social improvements and rights for ordinary people. This technology would however, give police considerably enhanced powers to clamp down on protests. We may deplore the sometimes extreme actions of the climate protestors, but without such protests, the government would be unlikely to take action of climate change.

To tackle the violence and riots in other words, we would be giving the government enhanced powers over other forms of legitimate protest. There is also the vexed issue of control. The various scandals we have seen in recent years including the Post Office, the biggest one of all, have shown an inability by the vast range of controls, audits, select committees, etc. etc. to exert any kind of realistic control over these organisations. They achieve lives of their own and seem impervious to moral principles or honest dealings. Do we really want to give them yet more technology?

Another objection is that it would give yet more power to the tech giants over our lives. A feature of the riots is how easy it has been for rioters to assemble by using such media as X and Telegram. These are American firms and are more of less completely outside anyone’s control. It was Elon Musk who decided to allow Tommy Robinson back onto X for example. So we have politicians and journalists making speeches, statements and writing opinion pieces, when it was the decision by one man on the other side of the pond which has provided a key weapon for the far right groups. Although Sir Keir is making noises about the tech giants, will the government actually do anything?

Finally, it sees the solution to these problems in technological terms: we have problem, lets install some more kit and problem solved. The issues are much deeper than simply arresting some thugs. Poverty, low wages, poor housing, inflation and a host of other issues have led to groups of people feeling left behind or ignored by the politicians and to an extent the media.

We should think very carefully before giving politicians yet more power to intrude into our lives. Even though it may mean some of the rioters escaping justice. China has this system installed offering the government almost complete control over its citizens. They have 700 million such cameras used widely as a means to monitor its citizens and to repress minorities. Perhaps we should remember the Chinese proverb ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with just a single step’. Our liberties are fragile and we should be extremely cautious of giving government’s powers to limit them further. It has the power to be the biggest threat to human rights and civil liberties in the UK.