South Wales Police says it is reviewing its approach after internal force data, reported by the Guardian, showed ethnic minority people made up 24% of those selected for officer-initiated Neoface facial-recognition checks in 2025, although they account for 7% of the force area’s population.
The figures concern a specific policing tool. Officers photograph a person on a smartphone and use Neoface to compare the image against custody mugshots and other face databases. The Guardian reported that officers initiated scans of 257 adults and 14 children during 2025. More than half involved people suspected of a crime, being unlawfully at large or breaching bail conditions; other uses included identifying missing people and people believed to be at risk.
South Wales Police says each deployment reflects the circumstances confronting officers, while the number of searches remains small and the technology is still in its early stages. Those qualifications matter. They do not, however, answer why the selected group was so different from the force area’s population.
The available reporting does not establish whether the disparity arose from officer decisions, database composition, algorithm performance or some combination of factors. Nor does it provide case-by-case grounds, outcomes by ethnicity or false-match rates. The figures alone cannot establish that an individual scan was unlawful or that the software caused the gap.
But the force has said the data raise concerns about disproportionality. Its review should be publicly assessable: South Wales Police should publish why scans are initiated, what results they produce, what supervisory checks apply and what measures it will use to judge progress. That is a recommendation for the review, not a reported force commitment.
Facial recognition may help identify wanted people or someone unable to provide their name. Yet a tool that can turn a street encounter into a database search carries a particular duty to show that its burdens are fairly shared. The force’s own reported data make that duty immediate.
Sources
- The Guardian · UK · Source date: 2026-11-15
Independent editorial content. WUA is not affiliated with any political party. 2026-11-15