The government department responsible for internal affairs in the UK, often referred to as the Home Office, has recently instructed police departments to consult their individual photo repositories before requesting access to its extensive collections of passport and visa facial images. This suggestion also goes hand in hand with their recommendation to minimize the frequency of urgent requests unless they are deemed significantly essential. These updated procedures were inserted into the newly released handbook for passport anti-fraud officers and workers in the Immigration Fingerprint Bureau and laid out the procedures that law enforcement officers (LEOs) have to adhere to while attempting to cross-verify an image with the vast facial databases utilized for UK passports and visas.
This instruction comes on heels of a previous legal interaction with Big Brother Watch and Privacy International. Both privacy-focused groups sent the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police a legal notice, with a concurrent plea for a temporary halt on cop’s examination of these databases, during August. They rescued this information through Freedom of Information requests, which were duly answered by 31 police branches, revealing a sudden uptick in the numbers of LEO’s exploration of these databases.
From being a negligible two instances in the year 2020, the probe into the passport database had experienced a significant surge, reaching an astonishing 417 in 2023. On a similar note, the Home Office data showed there was a concurrent increase in data explorations also for the immigration data, swelling up from 16 in 2023 to a noticeable 102 in 2024. Consequently, the latest guidance from the Home Office chiefly emphasizes that investigations urged by LEOs must serve the public’s interest. This has been articulated as assisting major crime resolution, fortifying national safety, or conserving human lives.
Further, they have reinforced the policy that such actions should be expected to bring about their stated goals. Additionally, they specify that every other reasonable, less intrusive option should have been tried out first before requesting a facial image verification. This includes searches of police image databases and, in the event of foreign nationals, cross-verifying data against the immigration database of fingerprints.
If LEOs decide to proceed further, the process isn’t simply automated. It requires the approval of a police official of inspector rank or similar standing, followed by the task of filling out a dedicated form for each search into either the passport or visa database. After completion, it is then sent to an official, secure email address for further processing.
LEOs are also afforded the liberty of tagging requests as urgent; however, they are cautioned to do so sparingly and as a last-ditch effort. They are strongly advised to circumvent frequent urgent requests as it might hinder the speedy processing of other impending urgent requests. It emphasizes vigilance from the LEOs in understanding the potential ripple effect of their actions in this context.
Once the search has been approved and it yields one or more potential matches, these require validation by at least two members of the Home Office staff. Only after this, the image along with the accompanying data such as name, date of birth, citizenship, gender, and passport number can be forwarded to the necessary channels.
However, an addendum to the guidance was appended a week after its initial release on September 15. Highlighting a critical point, the Home Office reiterated that while these matches are derived solely on the basis of image comparisons, they cannot replace expert judgment and must not be solely relied upon.
As the UK Passport Office holds one of the larger and more extensive databases of the UK populace, this warning resonates significantly. By the end of 2024, there were approximately 53.2 million valid British passports in circulation, each coming with a corresponding photograph in the database.
Additionally, the Immigration and Asylum Biometric System involves facial images supplied by non-residents when placing requests to UK Visas and Immigration. This adds yet another substantial number of photographs to the existing accumulated data.
Big Brother Watch has claimed that this particular database houses nearly 92 million individual pictures, expanding the portfolio of images that could potentially be cross-verified by the law enforcement agencies. This highlights the complexity and the extent of the situation that the recent regulations aim to address.
The post UK Home Office Restricts Frequent Access to Facial Image Databases by Police appeared first on Real News Now.
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