Officers are drafting a response. Please be advised that there may be some delay as the information also requires input from functional bodies.

LFR is not being used by the MPS. The MPS trialled LFR between 2016 and 2019 and completed the 10 deployments that were scheduled. The precise number of searches that were automatically conducted by the MPS LFR systems is not known as each search that did not generate a match was instantly deleted.

The MPS conducted 429 facial searches on the internal MPS retrospective Facial Search system in 2017, 339 searches in 2018 and 0 (zero) searches in 2019 (this is due to the system being out of service at this time).

The MPS conducted 712 facial searches on the PND (Police National Database) in 2017, 944 facial searches in 2018 and 564 facial searches in 2019 up to and including June. PND is a useful tool as it supports delivery of three strategic benefits, namely safeguarding children and vulnerable people (including missing people), counter terrorism and preventing and disrupting serious and organised crime.