Met urged to scrap facial recognition camera plans for Notting Hill carnival

The Met commissioner should scrap plans to deploy live facial recognition (LFR) at next weekend's Notting Hill carnival because the technology is riven with "racial bias" and subject to a legal challenge, 11 civil liberty and anti-racist groups have demanded.

- Rajeev Syal

A letter sent to Mark Rowley warns that use of instant face-matching cameras at an event that celebrates the African-Caribbean community "will only exacerbate concerns about abuses of state power and racial discrimination within your force".

The Runnymede Trust, Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Race on the Agenda, and Human Rights Watch are among those who claim that the technology "is less accurate for women and people of colour".

The demand comes days after ministers ramped up the deployment of vans fixed with facial recognition technology to nine forces across England and Wales.

The Met said last month it would deploy cameras at entrances and exits of the two-day event in west London. As many as 2 million people attend the second biggest street festival in the world every year, held on the August bank holiday weekend.

In the letter seen by the Guardian, the signatories said: "The choice to deploy LFR at Notting Hill carnival unfairly targets the community that carnival exists to celebrate.

"The Met has been found to be institutionally racist by Baroness Casey's independent review and trust in the Met has been badly damaged by discriminatory policing.