Thames Valley Police (TVP) deployed live facial recognition cameras on Cornmarket Street on Tuesday 19th May.
The cameras scan the faces of passers-by in the area and compare them to pre-existing biometric data in a watchlist made specifically for that deployment. Watchlists typically consist of wanted criminals, suspects of crimes, missing people, those vulnerable to harm, people on court orders or bail restrictions, and known violent offenders.
The facial data on these watchlists can come from mugshots, CCTV footage, and arrest photographs. The database can also include people who have not been convicted of a crime, for example, those who have been arrested but not convicted, people of interest recorded on CCTV in relation to crimes, or people associated with crimes or criminal organisations. Watchlists are not publicised by the police.
If the facial data of passers-by matches that of those on the watchlist, TVP told Cherwell that “an officer on the ground will verify this, engage with the individual involved, and determine the most appropriate and proportionate course of action to take, which may be an arrest”.
Thames Valley Police confirmed to Cherwell that facial recognition technology had been used in Cornmarket Street on four separate occasions since its introduction: 19th May 2026, 20th March 2026, 14th January 2026, and 22nd December 2025. TVP has used the technology multiple times throughout the past couple of years at multiple locations across Oxfordshire.
Signs were used to warn passers-by of the live facial recognition cameras in Cornmarket Street, as required by law, and police officers remained present throughout the usage of the technology to answer questions from the public. Data of people passing by who don’t match the watchlist data is deleted immediately.
Thames Valley Police told Cherwell: “The Live Facial Recognition technology is deployed, used and managed by specially trained officers who have been through the police vetting system and are subject to Thames Valley Police’s standards of professional behaviour, as is the case with any officer or member of police staff.”
More than 1,000 arrests were made nationally between 2024 and mid 2025 as a result of live facial recognition technology. The cameras were also recently deployed at a protest for the first time, at the Unite the Kingdom and pro-Palestine marches in London on the 16th May.
The technology has attracted criticism from civil liberties organisations, including Amnesty International UK, Big Brother Watch, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), particularly over usage at political events and protests. In 2025, the EHRC warned that facial recognition technology could have a “chilling effect” when used at protests and public events, citing concerns over a restriction on freedom to protest.
Live facial recognition has also been known to produce false positives, occurring when the technology wrongfully matches a face with data from someone in the database. Police reports emphasise that facial recognition technology has very low rates of false positives, with the 2025 report claiming a false positive rate of 0.0003% after the technology scanned over three million people. Thames Valley Police told Cherwell that no false positives occurred in the recent deployment of the technology on Cornmarket Street.
Of those who did experience being falsely matched with the database, ethnic minorities were disproportionately affected. Eight out of ten of the people falsely identified in 2025 were black. Research also showed that women were twice as likely to be affected by false positives as men. Lobby groups have called for an end to the usage of the technology, as Liberty argued the technology posed a “direct threat to minority communities” and Big Brother Watch stated that the technology “perpetuated existing biases on a mass scale”.
 deployed live facial recognition cameras on Cornmarket Street last Tuesday, 19th May. ){kind=link}