Automated facial recognition (AFR) is perhaps the most controversial policing tool of the twenty-first century. Police forces in England and Wales, and beyond, are using facial recognition in various contexts, from evidence gathering to the identification and monitoring of criminal suspects. Despite uncertainty regarding its accuracy, and widespread concerns about its impact on human rights and broader social consequences, the rise of police facial recognition continues unabated by law. Both the Government and the domestic courts were satisfied that police use of this technology is regulated adequately by existing statutory provisions regulating the processing of data and police surveillance generally. That is, until the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Others [2020] EWCA Civ 1058, where it was held that the respondent's use of AFR was unlawful. This paper provides an analysis of AFR, reflecting on the outcome of that case and evaluates its nuanced findings. We suggest that the judgment leaves considerable room for police AFR to continue with only minor, piecemeal amendment to the legal framework. Drawing on comparative experience and relevant socio-legal scholarship, we argue that the relatively unfettered rise of police facial recognition in England and Wales illuminates deeper flaws in the domestic framework for fundamental human rights protection and adjudication, which create the conditions for authoritarian policing and surveillance to expand.

自动面部识别 (AFR) 可能是 21 世纪最具争议的警务工具。英格兰和威尔士及其他地区的警察部队正在各种情况下使用面部识别，从证据收集到犯罪嫌疑人的识别和监控。尽管其准确性存在不确定性，并且人们普遍担心其对人权和更广泛的社会后果的影响，但警察面部识别的兴起并没有因法律而减弱。政府和国内法院都满意，警察对这项技术的使用受到现行法律规定的充分监管，这些法律规定通常规范数据处理和警察监视。也就是说，直到上诉法院最近在R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Others [2020] EWCA Civ 1058，裁定被告使用 AFR 是非法的。本文对 AFR 进行了分析，反映了该案例的结果并评估了其细微的发现。我们建议，该判决为警察 AFR 留下了相当大的空间，可以继续对法律框架进行微小的、零碎的修改。借鉴比较经验和相关的社会法律学术，我们认为英格兰和威尔士警察面部识别的相对不受约束的兴起，揭示了国内基本人权保护和裁决框架的更深层次缺陷，这为威权警务和监视创造了条件扩大。