Police are feeding passport photo data into facial recognition databases

Big Brother Watch have warned that police forces are feeding passport data into facial recognition databases:

📸Your passport photo has secretly been turned into a facial recognition police mugshot.

By subverting our photos into a giant facial recognition database, we’re all at risk not only of profound invasions of privacy but misidentifications & injustice.https://t.co/KIFHRGsqVL pic.twitter.com/5zTrY2bBWD

— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) November 30, 2025

Facial recognition—consent and accountability

Big Brother Watch have warned:

This affects everyone with a passport. When you applied for your passport, brushed your hair, sat down for a photo that would stay with you for the next 10 years, I’m guessing you didn’t expect that photo to secretly be turned into a police mugshot. But that’s exactly what’s happening.

British passport and immigration databases are being used by the police for mass facial recognition searches without a clear legal basis or the public or parliament’s knowledge. The number of searches of the passport database has skyrocketed from two in 2020 to 417 in 2023.

This not only violates our privacy, it puts us at serious risk of misidentification and injustice. It means police officers could secretly take photos from protests, social media, or anywhere really, and seek to identify us.

The police shouldn’t be able to scan and track us without cause, consent or accountability. If you believe in privacy, freedom and justice, now is the time to act.

The group link their Stop Facial Recognition campaign, where they note:

Police and private companies in the UK have been quietly rolling out facial recognition surveillance cameras, taking ‘faceprints’ of millions of people — often without you knowing about it. This is an enormous expansion of the surveillance state — and it sets a dangerous precedent worldwide. We must stop this dangerously authoritarian surveillance now.

You can learn about and support their legal work here.

Featured image via Sky News