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Facial recognition will be used “in a very measured, proportionate way”, the policing minister has vowed.
Asked about allegations a wider rollout of facial recognition was the “thin end of the wedge”, leading to a “total surveillance society”, Diana Johnson told BBC Breakfast:
With the greatest of respect, that’s not what this is about. This is about giving the tools to our police officers to enable them to keep us safe. And the live facial recognition results in London, where it’s been used, in the past 12 months, over 580 arrests were made, and these included people who were wanted for rape, for GBH (grievous bodily harm), for robbery, for domestic abuse, and also for sex offenders who were breaching their conditions of being out in the community.
So I think this is a really powerful tool for policing.
And it’s actually a tool, it’s not an automated decision maker. So, the police officer has to look at what’s being put up on the screen and decide what to do next, so there’s that human involvement, but it is a really powerful tool, which I think the public would actually be supportive of being used in a very measured, proportionate way to go after those individuals that the police are looking for for these serious offences.
Releasing suspects’ ethnicity and nationality won’t stop all instances of disinformation, says policing minister
Disinformation could still spread around suspects arrested under new guidance for police, a minister has said, reports the PA news agency.
Police forces have been told to share suspects’ ethnicity and nationality with the public after authorities were accused of covering up offences carried out by asylum seekers, and after riots following the Southport murders which were partly fuelled by social media disinformation.
The interim guidance by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing comes after mounting pressure on police over the details they make public.
Asked on BBC Breakfast whether not revealing nationality and ethnicity until a suspect is charged, rather than when they are arrested, means disinformation could still spread in the community as it did after Axel Rudakubana’s murders in Southport, policing minister Diana Johnson agreed. Johnson said:
(Disinformation) is a bigger problem for society, I think, but in terms of particular individuals, what normally happens is at charge, information is released. That’s what’s happened before.
Johnson said:
We were very supportive of being as open and as transparent as possible and this interim guidance will set out that on charge, usually name and addresses are given.
We also, in most cases, will want to see nationality or ethnicity given as well. This goes back to last year and what happened, that appalling atrocity in Southport.
She said the government has asked the Law Commission to look into the guidance to make sure any future trial is not prejudiced by information released.
Asked if information about a suspect’s asylum status will be shared in new guidance, Johnson replied:
To date, it’s not something that the Home Office comment on in terms of asylum applications that are made by individuals.
More on this story in a moment. Also today, Keir Starmer will co-chair a meeting with pro-Ukraine allies after a call with US president Donald Trump and European leaders about ending the war scheduled to take place at about midday.
According to The Times, US vice-president JD Vance will meet Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for breakfast in the Cotswolds. In the afternoon, JD Vance is scheduled to visit US troops at Royal Air Force Fairford in Gloucestershire.
In other developments:
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A Trump administration report has accused the UK of backsliding on human rights over the past year, citing increased antisemitic violence and growing restrictions on free speech. The annual US state department assessment, which analyses human rights conditions worldwide, flagged what it described as “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression in the UK.
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A former cabinet minister has said the UK government is “digging itself into a hole” over Palestine Action and fellow Labour peers and MPs were regretting voting to ban the group. The warning by Peter Hain, who opposed proscription, came as a Labour backbencher who supported it said the issue would arise again when parliament returned in September.
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Scottish Green Party members will begin voting for the party’s new leadership from Wednesday. The ballot to replace the current team of co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater will be open until 22 August, with the results to be published a week later.
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More than 46,000 public bodies spurned the offer of a free King Charles portrait. According to a Guardian exclusive, the Cabinet Office has refused a freedom of information (FoI) request to disclose exactly where the pictures did end up amid falling public support for monarchy.
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A group of nine human rights and freedom of expression organisations have called on the culture secretary to halt RedBird Capital’s proposed £500m takeover of the Telegraph and investigate the US private equity company’s ties to China. The international non-governmental organisations, which include Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders and Article 19, have written to Lisa Nandy arguing that RedBird Capital’s links with China “threaten media pluralism, transparency and information integrity in the UK”.
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