British Transport Police is extending its live facial recognition trial to the London Underground, beginning at Victoria station before rotating cameras through Tube and Network Rail locations until November. The move matters because it brings police face-scanning into one of the country’s busiest public transport systems, intensifying debate over privacy, surveillance and the risk of wrongful identification.

The trial began at London Bridge in February and uses NEC’s NeoFace M40 algorithm to compare people in a camera’s view with police watchlists; officers review any potential match before acting. BTP says non-matching images are deleted immediately, while critics argue the technology could capture millions of innocent passengers and may disproportionately misidentify ethnic minority people. The Underground carries an estimated 3.7 million weekday journeys, and a survey of 2,000 UK adults found 69% wanted public input on its use, with 61% concerned that errors could wrongly implicate people.