The Government’s biometrics watchdog warns technology is outpacing regulation as tools allowing people to be tracked by their smell or walking style become available
Next-generation biometric tools capable of singling out people by attributes such as their smell or walk are being assessed by UK police amid warnings that rapidly-advancing technology and a lack of privacy safeguards risk turning Britain into a “wild west” of state surveillance.
Electronic facial recognition tools used to identify suspects in real time are already being increasingly deployed by police forces in public spaces in a drive to improve arrest rates and trace fugitives.
But now upgraded techniques for identifying and tracing people by other physical and biological traits are becoming available, including the ability to detect an individual’s unique chemical “odour” and gait – the mixture of posture and movement that makes up the way somebody walks.
A leading researcher told The i Paper the first devices capable of detecting people via their smell are currently undergoing testing, while pilot projects for identifying individuals by their walk are already under way.
Among the organisations understood to be interested in such advances is the National Crime Agency (NCA), the elite policing body in charge of tackling organised crime targeting the UK, including human trafficking.
The outgoing government watchdog for the deployment of biometrics in the UK said that the NCA – described as being “at the cutting edge of use of new biometrics” – is among UK law enforcement bodies “keen” to understand how such technologies can be accessed and used.
The NCA said it was “alive to emerging technology” to help detect criminality. A spokesperson added: “Our work includes using methods that can help us to identify subjects of interest and other evidence relevant to our investigations.”
Biometric technology – the use of the human body’s distinguishing traits, from fingerprints to facial geometry, to prove identity or simply track people’s activity – is becoming increasingly common in spheres from retail and banking to travel and entertainment. Several European football clubs have started using facial recognition to verify ticketholders entering stadiums while similar technology is also being deployed at live music events and festivals.
According to one estimate, the annual value of the UK biometrics market is set to nearly triple in the eight years from 2022 to 2030, reaching £3.7bn by the end of the decade.
Several companies are currently working on systems which identify people by the unique shape of the human ear, while palm prints, voice patterns and vein distribution are already established biometric tools.
But it is in the sphere of law enforcement that the technology is having its most far-reaching and controversial impact.
In a valedictory report to the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Tony Eastaugh, the outgoing commissioner for the retention and use of biometric material, last month highlighted “ever more sophisticated” techniques such as gait and odour tracking, acknowledging that they have the potential to improve public safety by giving police further tools to improve accuracy when detecting or tracking suspects.
But he also warned that biometric technology has “outpaced policy and regulation” and called on ministers and law enforcement leaders to ensure a focus on “policy, and possibly legislative, solutions” to the problems being thrown up by the ever-increasing surveillance capabilities.
There is currently no specific law in the UK regulating the use of facial recognition software or other biometric surveillance tools, and its implementation is broadly defined by police forces and supervisory bodies.
Eastaugh wrote: “There can be no question that the use of these tools can be invaluable in bringing about increased public safety, but what is clearly needed is a balance between intrusion and the legitimate protection of society, and privacy.
“These rapid technological changes… necessitate the need to have clearer processes and assurances that relate to the development and deployment of such technology… There is a need to ensure this sector has strong legal, ethical and societal frameworks in place that are robust and properly understood.”
Eastaugh suggested there was a lack of support within the Government for his role, which also covers the regulation of surveillance cameras, saying it had proved “very difficult to win interest within Whitehall”. He declined to comment further when approached by The i Paper on the basis that he has now moved to a new role within policing.
The UK is already one of the world’s most surveilled countries with some five million deployed security camera systems – putting it fourth behind China (200m), America (50m) and Japan (5.1m) – and is set to become more so.
Last summer, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his support for “wider deployment of facial recognition technology” in the wake of last year’s far-right riots. According to research by the Green Party, Scotland Yard has already dramatically ramped up its use of the tool, deploying it 117 times in the first eight months of 2024 – compared to 32 times for the entire period between 2020 and 2023.
Human rights groups strongly criticised any expansion of biometric surveillance, including live facial recognition, saying concerns about accuracy and racial bias remain unresolved and a broader threat to privacy posed by turning the public into “walking ID cards” has not been addressed.
Madeleine Stone, senior advocacy officer for Big Brother Watch, which campaigns for restrictions on state surveillance, said: “Growing police use of biometric surveillance poses a serious threat to everyone’s privacy. There is no law that specifically oversees these invasive new technologies, and as the rise in facial recognition shows, police forces will exploit legal grey areas to deploy AI-powered surveillance without democratic oversight.”
In November, policing minister Diana Johnston announced consultations with civil society groups and regulators over the use of facial recognition, saying there were “very legitimate concerns” about misidentification and the impact on privacy. The Home Office said it is considering “reform options” for the way biometric tools are deployed.
In December, however, the Government issued a call for bids for a £20m contract to provide a “national framework” for the use of live facial recognition software. It is understood the 48-month tender will enable a nationwide network of live camera feeds to be used to match individuals against police watchlists of fugitives or persons of interest.
Ruth Ehrlich, head of policy and campaigns at Liberty, said: “With no dedicated laws setting out how live facial recognition and other forms of biometrics can be used, this technology is operating in a regulatory wild-west. We must see urgent action and leadership from the Government to introduce safeguards to limit how the police can use this technology, and to protect all of us from abuse of power as we go about our daily lives.”
Industry sources nonetheless underlined that capabilities in biometrics are proceeding at breakneck speed, making it hard for regulators and law enforcement agencies wanting to strike a balance between privacy and public safety to adapt.
Although dogs have long been used to trace people according to their smell, the ability to do so by machine had evaded science until researchers recently perfected systems capable of analysing the volatile chemicals that constitute a person’s odour to create a unique biometric signature. A team at Oxford University recently found that using the ear to take samples of a person’s “smell” could provide a reliable basis for confirming identities, with an 87 per cent accuracy rate.
Gait biometrics, which use factors such as stride pattern and posture to single out individuals, are at an advanced stage and of particular interest to law enforcement agencies because they do not require close-up or well-defined imagery of individuals and can thereby allow identifications from a distance with low-resolution images.
A £2.7m EU-funded scheme, which involves British companies, will shortly start a pilot project to monitor individuals at border crossings with an ability to identify people at a distance of 200 metres.
In Argentina, a man was recently charged with the double murder of his mother and father in a case where evidence includes an attempt to tie the defendant to the crime scene by matching his gait pattern to CCTV footage of the alleged killer.
A researcher with a UK company involved in several biometric projects told The i Paper: “When it comes to areas such as odour and gait we are either at implementation or getting close to it. But the thing to remember is that no single biometric tool is going to be the silver bullet. The aim would be to combine several systems – say gait with facial recognition or ear shape – to the point where you have pretty much a fail-safe system of recognising an individual in any place at any time.
“The question is the extent to which society is prepared to accept that sort of scrutiny as a way of catching the bad guys.”
The NCA declined to discuss specific investigative tools but underlined it sought to ensure its deployment of such capabilities is “lawful, targeted and impactful”.
A spokesperson added: “The NCA uses all means at our disposal to detect the most complex and harmful criminality impacting the UK, and protect the public from its perpetrators.”
The Home Office said it was aware of concerns about the use of “emerging” biometric tools by police. A spokesperson said: “The use of technology by the police is vital to identifying offenders and keeping our streets safe, but it must be used in ways that uphold public trust and confidence in our police.”