Tag: facial recognition

UK Human Rights Report: Current Threats and Government Actions


Monthly report on human rights in the UK

December 2025

Amnesty has for many years, focused its efforts on human rights issues overseas. Recent actions by governments of both persuasions have meant a greater focus on the threats to rights here in the UK. Only this very week, the prime minister and other ministers are in Europe trying to seek agreement to a ‘modernisation’ of the ECHR arguing it is necessary to tackle the immigration ‘crisis’. In this post, we review aspects of our rights which are current or under threat.

Freedom of Expression

The outcome of November’s High Court hearing of the legal challenge mounted by Liberty and Amnesty to the ban on Palestine Action is still pending.  Amnesty’s Director of Communications claims that ‘the Government’s ban is a disproportionate misuse of the UK’s terrorism powers and breaches articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which protect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association.

“We have seen the chilling consequences of this decision across the country – with thousands of arrests in recent months.  These mass arrests, and the silencing that organisations and individuals have felt, is a clear and frightening example of how the UK is misusing overly-broad terrorism laws to suppress free speech. Terrorism powers have never been used against what was previously direct-action protest and if this precedent is allowed to stand, it opens up a bleak future for protest rights in the UK.” 

Amnesty is seriously concerned at reports of the worsening condition of members of the Filton 24 who are on hunger strike after the damage to two aircraft at Brize Norton last year as protest against the Israeli Elbit Systems’ involvement in Gaza. None of the prisoners have been charged under the Terrorism Act but prosecutors have said both offences had a “terrorism connection”.  Amnesty has consistently opposed the use of anti-terrorism powers in these cases claiming they have been used to justify excessively lengthy pre-trial detention and draconian prison conditions.   

Arrest of Britons overseas

Amnesty International is urging the UK Government to develop a clear and consistent approach to the unjust imprisonment of British people overseas, including a new strategy that should include as a minimum:

  • the Government calling for an arbitrarily-detained person’s immediate release (including publicity where requested by the family)
  • pressing for access to a lawyer, a fair trial and medical care where relevant
  • demanding consular access insisting that UK officials be able to attend trials
  • regularly meeting with family members to outline the Government’s overall approach in the case.

The UK Government’s failures on this issue, highlighted in a recent BBC drama and documentary on the case of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, continue today.  British nationals, including Ahmed al-Doush, are not receiving the level of diplomatic support required to secure their release.  Ahmed was arrested while on a family holiday in Saudi Arabia in 2024 for social media posts.  The Manchester-based father of four was convicted under terrorism legislation and sentenced to 10 years in prison, later reduced to eight.

The UK Government has failed to advocate for Ahmed, not taking a position on his case, despite being provided by information indicating that his detention is a freedom of expression case.  Amnesty International continue to campaign so that Ahmed can be reunited with his family and urges the UK Government to advocate for his release if he is being held solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Use of Facial Recognition by police

A Government consultation into police use of facial recognition is set to launch imminently.

Liberty has been calling on the Government to follow the example of other countries which have introduced laws around police use of facial recognition technology – and has urged Ministers and police forces to stop expanding its use until those laws are in place.  Alarm has been raised at the finding that faces of children are included on the records of some police forces.

Liberty wants the inclusion of the following safeguards:

  • The independent sign off before facial recognition is used
  • Police to only use facial recognition technology to search for missing persons or victims of abduction, human trafficking and sexual exploitation; to prevent an imminent threat to life or people’s safety; to search for people suspected of committing a serious criminal offence;
  • Watchlists to contain only images strictly relevant to the purposes above;
  • However, Amnesty International wants a global ban on this technology on the grounds that it violates the human right to privacy, it inaccurately targets minorities, especially people of colour and women; it intimidates people from free expression of views;
  • It cites racist bias in examples of the use of mass surveillance technology by US policing of black communities, and also Israeli policing of Palestinians.

Change declared to European Convention on Human Rights

After the UK recently joined Denmark and Italy in pressing for a rethink of aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), especially in relation to migration law, the Council have now taken the first steps to reshape how European courts interpret human rights.  Amid fierce debate over the balance between ECHR and national migration controls, ministers made a joint declaration which will now task 46 foreign ministers with drafting a political declaration to be adopted at the next meeting in May 2026.

The Council oversees the ECHR while its court enforces those rights across 46 member states including all 27 EC countries.  Greater national flexibility is demanded in response to human smuggling, border security and the expulsion of offenders.

Sir Keir Starmer and other heads of state have restated that, while wishing to see some ‘modernisation’ of the Convention, there is no intention of abolishing it.  The move is seen as a response to protest from far-right groups across Europe and ‘uncontrolled’ immigration and the perception that the right to family life inhibits states from deporting convicted foreign criminals.

Human rights groups are raising concerns at the dilution of the original Declaration of Human Rights as non-negotiable, universal and inclusive of all minorities. 

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Starmer’s wish to see more facial recognition technology


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.

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