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Live Facial Recognition

Digital intelligence and investigation — Authorised Professional Practice

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Summary

Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology is used for the overt deployment aimed at locating persons on a watchlist. It operates by comparing real-time feeds from cameras against a pre-established watchlist, generating alerts for possible matches with individuals of interest. The document provides guidance on how to effectively execute the deployment of LFR technology, detailing operational procedures and considerations surrounding its use in policing.

Key principles

  • 1LFR involves real-time facial recognition to locate individuals.
  • 2It uses live camera feeds to compare against a watchlist.
  • 3Deployment should be overt and guided by established protocols.
  • 4Alerts are generated upon detection of a possible match.

Defined terms

Live Facial Recognition
A real-time deployment of facial recognition technology, comparing a live camera feed against a predetermined watchlist.
Watchlist
A predetermined list of individuals of interest for monitoring by facial recognition technology.

Full guidance

Overt deployment of live facial recognition (LFR) technology to locate persons on a watchlist

This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.

LFR is a real-time deployment of facial recognition technology, which compares a live camera feed (or multiple feeds) of faces against a predetermined watchlist, in order to locate persons of interest by generating an alert when a possible match is found.

This module provides guidance for the overt deployment of live facial recognition (LFR) technology to locate persons on a watchlist.

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Reproduced from the College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice under the Open Government Licence v3.0, as captured on 2026-06-27. APP is amended over time — check the source link below for the current version. This is a reference, not operational authorisation.

APP is the authoritative source for UK policing practice and is updated over time. For the current, official version — including any operational detail not reproduced here — go direct.

Read the full APP guidance

Source: College of Policing — Authorised Professional Practice · Crown copyright, licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0. Summary fetched 2026-06-27.