Facial recognition technology becoming 'invaluable'

Facial recognition technology is bringing more criminals to justice, with a 60% year-on-year increase in positive identifications in 2025, Cheshire Police have said.

There were 973 positive identifications using facial recognition technology last year across Cheshire, said Cheshire East Councillor Judy Snowball, who chairs the county's police and crime panel.

The technology, which compare images of people's faces with photographs on police databases, has been used retrospectively in the borough and is not currently used in real time, said Police and Crime Commissioner Dan Price.

Snowball said the technology was an important tool in the fight against crime.

"The use of it retrospectively has been invaluable, especially when it comes to things like shop theft," Price explained.

"I've spoken to a number of stores that have been uploading imagery and it's absolutely brought about justice much, much faster."

He said the technology had also been used to piece together incidents in which an offender had been in one part of the county one afternoon and elsewhere the following day.

"It's been used to really accurately collate this is a regular offender who is effectively doing this in lots of different areas and, without this facial recognition, pulling that case together would have taken a lot more resource," he said.

"So, it's absolutely got a role to play in bringing about justice faster."

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