Facial Recognition Surveillance Policing and Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Scanning millions of faces each year, facial recognition technology (FRT) has become one of today's fastest growing and most controversial AI-driven surveillance technologies.

Based on rare ethnographic access to police FRT deployments, Facial Recognition Surveillance: Policing and Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence delves into the profound impact of FRT on policing practices, surveillance capabilities, and human rights protections. It reveals how this technology shapes, and is also shaped by, the complex environments in which it is deployed, dramatically reshaping police-citizen interactions.

This book exposes the selective scientific and legal narratives that justify the expansion of AI-driven surveillance. It draws on cutting-edge human rights theory to propose a due diligence framework tailored to police use of FRT and introduces the concept of 'compound human rights harm' to capture the multifaceted impact of surveillance.

Integrating insights from the sociology of policing, science and technology studies, and human rights scholarship, this book advances a theoretically novel and empirically informed perspective that positions FRT as a socio-technical system capable of altering the fundamental nature of policing.

Pete Fussey, Professor of Criminology, University of Southampton,Daragh Murray, Senior Lecturer, Queen Mary University School of Law

Pete Fussey is a Professor of Criminology at the University of Southampton and researches the human rights implications of advanced surveillance and other policing technologies. His other published work analyses digital sociology, algorithmic justice, and urban studies. He has authored work laid before the UN General Assembly; co-authored UN human rights standards on police technology at protests; and co-directed the ESRC Human Rights, Big Data and Technology project (2015-2023). Professor Fussey's research has featured on the front pages of The Guardian and Financial Times, and additionally covered by BBC Newsnight, PBS Newshour, The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC Radio 4 and others.


Daragh Murray is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University London School of Law, and a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. He specialises in international human rights law and the law of armed conflict, with an interest in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. He has been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to examine the 'unintended consequences' of artificial intelligence, with an emphasis on understanding the links between surveillance and the processes central to individual's identity development and the evolution of democratic societies. He was previously a member of the UKRI funded Human Rights, Big Data & Technology Project.

PART I.1. The Emergence of Advanced Biometric Surveillance2. The Form, Function, and Fallibilities of AI-Driven Surveillance3. Human Rights Law Considerations Brought into Play by Public SurveillancePART II.4. A Due Diligence Framework for Facial Recognition Technology5. Identifying the Utility Linked to Facial Recognition Deployments6. Metropolitan Police Service Efforts to Identify Potential Harm to Human Rights Associated with Live Facial Recognition Deployments7. Deploying Facial Recognition Technology in London: Techno-Certainties and Operational Ambiguities8. Human-Technology Interaction during Advanced Surveillance Operations9. Conclusion: Facial Recognition as a Complex Socio-Technical Surveillance System