Live facial recognition has no place at Notting Hill Carnival

The Met Police is pushing ahead with plans to use divisive LFR at Notting Hill – it's another terrifying slide towards state surveillance. Plus: Zoë Grünewald on Epping decision + latest ReformWatch.

What we are seeing is state-sanctioned biometric tracking of the public. Pic: Natalie Morris

Notting Hill Carnival has been over-policed and subject to unwarranted scrutiny for decades. Year after year, the UK’s largest street festival is policed as though it is a threat, not a celebration, and viewed through a prism of inherent criminality – simply because of who it represents.

No other major event in Britain is treated this way. Of course there is crime at Notting Hill, as is the case at any gathering of thousands of people, but the gleeful, annual condemnation and clockwork calls for cancellation from the right-wing press are consistently disproportionate and dripping with bias. The numbers don’t stack up. A study just a few years ago found that there are a comparable number of arrests at Glastonbury and Notting Hill, and yet the headlines about the five-day music festival are rarely laser-focused on crime, as they so often are in relation to Carnival. 

As the bank holiday weekend approaches, what should be a time of joyful anticipation now risks being overshadowed once again by a focus on criminality, as the Met Police push ahead with a divisive plan to use live facial recognition [LFR] at Carnival. The aim, says Scotland Yard chief Sir Mark Rowley, is to pick out people who pose a threat to public safety. He added that only criminals should fear the use of LFR. But I’m far from comforted by Rowley’s empty reassurances, because it isn’t only criminals who are targeted by this inaccurate, racially biased technology. Shaun Thompson has reported that he was wrongly identified as a wanted man by the Met’s new cameras last February. Thompson, a Black British man, was incorrectly identified as a criminal, held by officers, and then faced demands for his fingerprints. He won’t be the only one to face an ordeal like this. 

An independent report by the public corporation the National Physical Laboratory found that the Met’s LFR technology is less accurate for both women and for people of colour (imagine being both!). Studies have found that this technology could “exacerbate systemic racism” and that it is “dangerously inaccurate”. There are currently no legal obligations defining exactly how the police should use this tech. Campaigners say the Met have been allowed to “self-regulate” their use of LFR, meaning there is no oversight and little to no accountability.

The Runnymede Trust, Liberty, Big Brother Watch, Race on the Agenda, and Human Rights Watch are among those who sent a letter to the Met commissioner warning of "racial bias” and “abuses of state power”. The letter goes on to say: "The choice to deploy LFR at Notting Hill carnival unfairly targets the community that carnival exists to celebrate.” 

Aside from the racial bias and inaccuracy, there are other issues with using facial recognition technology as a policing tool. There is no meaningful consent, no opt-out option, and no clarity on what happens to your data after it has been captured. A report from just last year found UK police have been unlawfully storing custody images of people not charged or acquitted. These images, which are accessible via the Police National Database, can then feed facial recognition systems across the country. 

What we are seeing is state-sanctioned biometric tracking of the public, and it is no coincidence that it is happening alongside the rising criminalisation of peaceful protestors. Normalising the use of LFR under the guise of public safety is not just bad policy, it’s a dangerous slide towards authoritarian surveillance. 

Earlier this month, we reported on the lasting legacy of trauma caused by the disproportionate use of stop-and-search against the Black community, and the concern that the use of AI technology by police risks “supercharging” racism and abuses of police powers. Thomson, the wrongly accused man, has likened LFR to “stop-and-search on steroids”. This tech is already being rolled out without regulatory oversight, democratic consent, or appropriate safeguards.

Using this technology at Carnival represents a tipping point; marginalised communities will feel the worst impacts of disproportionate surveillance first, before it seeps outwards into other sections of society. If we allow the erosion of rights here, we risk opening the floodgates everywhere.

No one is arguing violent crime at Carnival should be ignored. There are sizeable challenges in policing the event that should not be underestimated, and changes to improve security and safety are needed. Knife crime and assault must be addressed to protect the overwhelming majority who attend Carnival to celebrate in peace. But live facial recognition is not the way to do it. Instead of feeding existing biases to the algorithms, and amplifying them in the process, policing efforts at Carnival must be rooted in community engagement and rebuilding eroded trust.■

 About the author: Natalie Morris is our Senior Editor here at The Lead. Elsewhere, she is a freelance writer, journalist and host covering social justice, inequality, health and community, writing in the Guardian, the Independent, Metro, Grazia, Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and more. She’s the author of Mixed/Other and co-author of Leigh-Anne Pinnock’s memoir Believe.

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The High Court’s decision to side with the local council and the closure of the Epping asylum hotel should not be a surprise to Labour, but it is – writes our Westminster Editor Zoë Grünewald.

The Epping case should be a turning point. But if recent history tells us anything, it is that the main parties will read it only as a lesson in optics: more evidence, in their eyes, that migration must be curbed even further. The truth is that the more they feed the leopard, the hungrier it grows. Unless the government dares to make the case for migration, it will be eaten alive by the monster it created.

Read Zoe’s full, and frank, take on Labour’s continued lurch rightwards and the consequences.

The Lead is keeping an eye on Reform UK and their fellow travellers. Get in touch on X, Bluesky and Instagram or email ella@thelead.uk with tips and stories. We especially want to hear from readers whose local council is now run by Farage’s followers.

• After a temporary injunction was issued by the High Court, to block the use of The Bell Hotel in Essex as accommodation for asylum seekers, Nigel Farage pledged that all the local authorities under his party’s control would “do everything in their power” to follow the lead of Tory-run Epping Forest District Council. Zia Yusuf has said the “wheels are in motion” for legal challenges around migrant hotels in Reform councils.

• One Reform’s youngest councillors, 22-year-old Joseph Boam, has been sacked as deputy leader of Leicester Council by council leader Dan Harrison — and he no longer holds his adult social care cabinet role on the council. The party has not confirmed the reasoning behind the sacking, but Boam, who has been positioned as a rising star in the party (despite facing controversy for his support of Andrew Tate) will remain on the council in a new, unconfirmed role. Some speculate it’s due to his lack of commitment to his role, but his mum said that isn’t true, so it mustn’t be.

• He’s not the only councillor to be accused of doing “naff all”. In Cornwall, Councillor Christine Parsonage, of St Columb Minor, has failed to attend a single Newquay Town Council meeting since being elected in May, leading the Mayor of Newquay to write to her to request her presence. Councillor Rob Parsonage, the Reform UK council leader for Cornwall — who happens to be her husband — accused Newquay Council of attempting to score "political points”.

• More chaos ensues at the top of Reform councils. David Taylor, the deputy leader of Worcestershire County Council, has stepped down three months into the role. He’ll remain in the cabinet and the council will be electing a new deputy leader ASAP.

• Swansea has got its first Reform councillor… via defection. Councillor Francesca O’Brien, who represents Mumbles, switched to Reform from the Welsh Conservative, saying it was the only way to break the “Labour-Plaid consensus in Cardiff Bay and create a government in Wales that understands the concerns of ordinary people”. And we’re sure she does understand the concerns of ordinary people, considering she has, on more than one occasion, expressed a view that benefits claimants should be “put down”.

• Reform has also gained a new councillor in Scotland, after "disillusioned" Labour-turned-independent councillor Julie MacDougall, of Fife, decided to join the party.

• In Lancashire, the Reform-led administration has brought in new guidelines that mean people who raise concerns with their local county councillor will have a longer wait for a response, reports the Lancashire Lead. It will now take up to four weeks, rather than two. Both the Conservatives and Labour believe that the changes aren’t good enough and will impact members of the public who are waiting for answers.

• And, finally, Reform has dropped its very own football shirt. As GQ’s Josiah Gogarty asks, is this the making of the UK’s own MAGA cap?

The Lead Digest

Here at The Lead, we like to consume just as much as we create, which is why we spend a little time each week rounding up our favourite stories, books, podcasts and films to offer our readers a sample of the work that informs our world.

Ella read this brilliant article by media critic Parker Molloy, on her Substack newsletter The Present Age. It’s about how the personification of LLMs like ChatGPT and Grok by reporters – such as suggesting ChatGPT has “self-reflected” and “issued an apology” – creates a “vacuum of responsibility,” allowing companies to evade accountability for their decisions. (This article about how we shouldn’t trust AI bots to tell us how they work, on The Verge, makes for good further reading.)

Zoe loved Phillip Inman’s latest pondering on whether Britain can rely on the baby boomer generation to step up. So much so that she wishes she’d written it herself. “The UK’s 12 million over-65s, he writes, should be the focus of any property tax debate, because they occupy a disproportionate share of family homes.” But, “if boomers gave more of their time to local communities rather than jetting off on several holidays a year, and if they moved out of their main homes in good time in favour of younger families, there might be less reason to pursue their wealth.”

Natalie’s blood is boiling after the Guardian reported that Olajuwon Ayeni, a Black man from Yorkshire, had been racially abused, falsely labelled a pedophile and suspended from his job after a video of him and his brother playing with his white grandchildren in the park was shared online by Tommy Robbinson and other far-right accounts. It’s a disgusting and damning example of the real-world impacts of hate-fueled online attacks by far-right ‘activists’.

Luke weirdly enjoyed this article from ConservativeHome, which isn’t something we'd regularly link to, about how Blackpool South has become one of the bellwether seats in the UK and how politicians should look to it rather than Dartford. It highlights the decline of the Conservatives, but why that's not a good thing for Labour.

And Ed recommends a new Substack, Future North, which explores the people, projects and ideas shaping the future of the North of England, written by economist and policy advisor JP Spencer. He has already published two great pieces about shifting power outside of Westminster (and how that's stubbornly not happened) and the failure of bus services outside of London.

At The Lead we’re dedicated to telling stories beyond the bright lights of London and Manchester (although sometimes we still will). We have dedicated journalists and titles in Blackpool, Lancashire, Calderdale, Teesside and Southport bringing in-depth news and features twice-a-week to those communities. You can subscribe to support our vital local journalism.

• Plans to expand Hillside Golf Club onto public land used by dog walkers have been approved at an ‘urgent referral’ planning committee in Southport. The plans have faced significant opposition from residents - particularly over a lack of discussion for the plans - but the council argued that they are crucial for tourism purposes ahead of The Open.

• Morecambe FC was on the brink a week ago, but has since been saved. The journey to positive momentum for the club will be a long one, but the relief at the club surviving at all is palpable. The Lancashire Lead got stuck into the subject.

• The owner of an Indian street food business in Blackpool has blamed a number of key exits from the business for a zero food hygiene rating. His old manager and head chef left to set up their own business, but said they did so due to a number of issues - most pertinently unpaid wages.

Thanks for reading this week’s Thursday edition of The Lead. We’ve got loads more coming your way to get you through the Bank Holiday weekend. Tomorrow, we’re looking in to what’s really going on with the boom of weight loss jabs – we all know someone who is taking them, but what happens when pharmaceutical companies skyrocket the costs? And over the weekend, we have an uplifting report on the fight to save Scotland’s crumbling mountain paths and the volunteers moving heaven and (literally) earth to restore the public spaces. Keep your eyes on your inbox.

Ed, Zoë, Ella, Luke, Natalie, Padraig, and The Lead team.