UK Police’s Passport Photo Searches Spark Privacy Row Amid Facial Recognition Surge

Police in the UK have carried out hundreds of facial recognition searches using the national passport photo database — a move campaigners call a “historic breach of the right to privacy,” The Telegraph has reported.

Civil liberties groups say the number of police requests to tap into passport and immigration photo records for suspect identification has soared in recent years. Traditionally, searches for facial matches were limited to police mugshot databases. Now, dozens of forces are turning to the Home Office’s store of more than 50 million passport images to match suspects from CCTV or doorbell footage.

Government ministers argue the system helps speed up criminal investigations. Critics, however, say it is edging Britain closer to an “Orwellian” surveillance state.

A major concern is that passport holders are never informed if their photo has been used in a police search. The UK’s former biometrics watchdog has warned that the practice risks being disproportionate and eroding public trust.

According to figures obtained via freedom of information requests by Big Brother Watch, passport photo searches rose from just two in 2020 to 417 in 2023. In the first ten months of 2024 alone, police had already conducted 377 such searches. Immigration photo database searches — containing images gathered by Border Force — also increased sharply, rea

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