In a first for Australian law enforcement, police in Western Australia have deployed live facial recognition technology in marked vans at locations around Perth.

The system scans the faces of passersby and compares them in real time to a watchlist of around 4,000 people with outstanding warrants. The list also includes registered sex offenders and missing persons. When a potential match occurs, nearby officers are alerted.

Police say the trial of the technology is “a way that we can increase the freedoms and the privacy of our community”. But facial recognition technology has documented drawbacks and risks, and deploying it in this way will present new ones – and Australia’s legal and governance systems are ill-prepared to manage them.

The case for the WA police program

WA police commissioner Col Blanch states the trial “is not about mass surveillance”.

The commissioner says the cameras will lead to better community protection from repeat sex offenders who might be violating restrictions. Other goals are to apprehend serious offenders and find missing persons more quickly.

There are some safeguards in place. No records are kept of any faces not on the watchlist, and the watchlist is limited to serious offenders.

The technology itself is not new. Police have used facial recognition on pre-recorded footage for more than ten years. What is new, however, is using it in real time on people walking down the street.

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