Scottish biometrics commissioner Brian Plastow criticized Police Scotland for not auditing its retrospective facial recognition (RFR) technology, making assessments of reliability, efficacy and fairness impossible. Unlike live facial recognition, RFR operates discreetly without public awareness. A review revealed that Police Scotland lacks vital data on the system's performance, including false positive and negative rates. Between April 2023 and March 2024, only 2% of searches in the National Database resulted in potential matches, underscoring inefficiencies in the system's operation without adequate oversight or evaluation metrics.
According to a joint assurance review published by Plastow and His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland, Police Scotland "does not currently collect, store, or analyse specific data to assess the effectiveness" of its RFR technology.
The review found that between April 2023 and March 2024, Police Scotland carried out 3,813 RFR searches of the UK's Police National Database, and 193 searches via CAID, yet a potential match was found in just 2% of cases.
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