Islington Police have defended their use of live facial recognition (LFR) technology near Finsbury Park mosque, despite concerns raised by councillors about community trust and potential bias. The police maintain that the technology is vital for community safety, particularly in light of high crime rates in the area.
At a meeting of the Islington Homes and Communities Scrutiny Committee on Monday 22 September 2025, Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart, BCU Commander, and Superintendent Katie Geal, Islington Borough SNT Lead, addressed questions about the controversial technology.
Superintendent Geal stated that Finsbury Park presents as the 'number one hot spot' for violence offences, war offences, robbery offences, and pretty much every offence across the metrics. While specific data on these offences wasn't detailed in the meeting, the police maintain that the area requires focused attention.
Councillor Jenny Kaye asked why the police decided to use live facial recognition 50 metres outside of the entrance to Finsbury Park mosque, and stated that the police did not inform the mosque that it would be a live facial recognition van.
Chief Superintendent Stewart said that the police believe this is the correct thing to do for our communities and that they have used it as an operationally independent tactic. He said that the Met Police is match fit for the year 2025 using the technology that's available to us to keep the community safe and to ultimately arrest criminals or and look at compliance with registered sex offenders and their licensing conditions.
Superintendent Geal said that the cameras were not pointing outside of any of the mosques and that she had gone back in to Mohammed Coswell and Tufik from Muslim Welfare House to reassure them that that wasn't the case.
Councillor Kaye challenged the police representatives, asking if the mosque leadership had been told in advance about the deployment of the LFR van. Superintendent Geal responded that it was part of the community impact assessment that officers from my teams had formed. She clarified that the communication was not written, but that officers visited personally the Muslim Welfare House and Dinsbury Park Mosque and that is recorded as part of our community impact assessment prior to the deployment of live facial recognition.
Councillor Flora Williamson asked how the police address the risk of unconscious bias leading to potential discrimination in the decisions about where to choose to deploy live facial recognition vans. Chief Superintendent Stewart responded that there was a whole governance process before we deploy the van and that includes the completion of a bespoke community impact assessment that would look at the local demographics would look at the impact and that would be really specific to local areas such as stringent park and we would have to evidence that we've worked through those considerations we'd have to evidence which community groups in particular we would need to speak to in that specific hot spot and document that in the impact assessment and ultimately way up is the is that impact you know is there a trade-off in that impact and and the successes that the operation may have.
Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart stated that the LFR technology has been assessed by national laboratory and the thresholds of which we operate the technology now are so high that that research suggests that there is very little scope for discrimination. Councillor Jenny Kaye asked about the research and Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart stated that the research which we're relying on at the moment is testing from the National Physical Laboratory they found that the system is accurate and balanced both with regards to ethnicity and gender so that's the position that we are relying on at the moment.
Councillor Mick Gilgunn raised concerns about the clear hold build policy, stating that it was used to clear out Finsbury Park, and actually what happened it moved to other areas like Tolenton. Chief Superintendent Stewart responded that they were doing a bit of analysis to understand what has that impact and you're right we have we have seen some some type of reporting around this being crime some of those surrounding wards and we're looking how we can combat that.
The 'clear, hold, build (CHB) strategy' is a three-phase operational framework designed to tackle serious and organized crime:
- Clear: Police actively pursue and remove gang members from an area.
- Hold: Authorities maintain control over the location to prevent other gangs from taking over.
- Build: Collaborate with community members and partners to develop the area, making it more resilient against crime and improving the quality of life for residents.
Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart acknowledged concerns that the policy might simply displace crime. He stated that there have been conversations around what is the impact on the neighboring wards and that's part of our nervousness around moving into the next phase of clear hole build because we want to make sure we haven't just cleared it over the road into other wards so we're doing a bit of analysis to understand what has that impact and you're right we have we have seen some some type of reporting around this being crime some of those surrounding wards and we're looking how we can combat that.
