Echoing US, the UK government goes all in on migrant surveillance
The U.K. continues to expand its use of facial recognition technology, despite a landmark decision two years ago when the Court of Appeal ruled that South Wales police’s use of facial recognition technology breached privacy rights, data protection laws and equality laws.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that the U.K. government had signed a £6 million contract with private manufacturer Buddi Limited to use facial recognition smart watches to monitor so-called “foreign national offenders.”
This effectively means that people without British citizenship who have been convicted of a criminal offense in the U.K. will have to scan their faces on the watches up to five times a day, with their locations being tracked 24/7. A manual check will be conducted if the photos taken do not match with the person’s biometric facial image. The name, date of birth, nationality and photographs will be stored for up to six years in a government database. The technology is reminiscent of the SmartLINK app used in the U.S. to monitor immigrants, which we have reported on before.
Buddi Limited, the company that was awarded the contract, is solely owned by a company called Big Technologies Plc. The non-executive chairman of Big Technologies is Simon Jeremy Collins, who owns, alongside what appears to be his wife, Mrs Simone Collins, Simon J Collins and Associates Limited.