Judgment Approved by the court for handing down.
R (Bridges) -v- CC South Wales & ors
Sir Terence Etherton MR, Dame Victoria Sharp PQBD and Lord Justice Singh :
1.
This appeal concerns the lawfulness of the use of live automated facial recognition
technology (“AFR”) by the South Wales Police Force (“SWP”) in an ongoing trial using
a system called AFR Locate. AFR Locate involves the deployment of surveillance
cameras to capture digital images of members of the public, which are then processed
and compared with digital images of persons on a watchlist compiled by SWP for the
purpose of the deployment. On the facts of the present case, AFR Locate has been used
in an overt manner. It was not deployed as a form of covert surveillance. For that reason
it is common ground that this case does not raise issues that might otherwise arise under
the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
2.
The appeal is from the order dated 4 September 2019 of Haddon-Cave LJ and Swift J
in the Divisional Court of the Queen’s Bench Division dismissing the Appellant’s claim
for judicial review challenging the legality of the use of AFR Locate on two particular
occasions and on an ongoing basis. The grounds of challenge were that AFR is not
compatible with the right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European
Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”), which is one of the Convention
rights set out in Sch.1 to the Human Rights Act 1998 (“HRA”); data protection
legislation; and the Public Sector Equality Duty (“PSED”) in section 149 of the Equality
Act 2010.
3.
The Divisional Court recorded in its judgment the co-operative and helpful way in
which the case had been presented on all sides in order to ascertain the court’s early
guidance as to the legal parameters and framework relating to AFR while it is still in
its trial phase and before it is rolled out nationally. This appeal has been conducted on
the same basis.
The Parties
4.
The Appellant, Edward Bridges, who was the claimant in these proceedings, is a civil
liberties campaigner who lives in Cardiff. He has been supported by Liberty, the wellknown independent civil liberties membership organisation. The Respondent is the
Chief Constable of SWP (Heddlu De Cymru).
5.
The Interested Party, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, is responsible
for policing nationwide and has concern for the development and lawful use of
technology, such as AFR, which has the potential to assist in the prevention and
detection of crime. The Secretary of State has provided funding to SWP to develop
AFR and in June 2018 published the Home Office Biometrics Strategy. The Secretary
of State created an Oversight and Advisory Board to co-ordinate consideration of the
use of facial images and AFR technology by law enforcement authorities.
6.
There are two interveners who were also interveners before the Divisional Court, the
Information Commissioner and the Surveillance Camera Commissioner. The
Information Commissioner has specific statutory powers and responsibilities under the
Data Protection Act 2018 (“the DPA 2018”), and also had responsibilities under the
predecessor legislation, the Data Protection Act 1998 (“the DPA 1998”). The
Surveillance Camera Commissioner is the statutory regulator of surveillance cameras.
He has specific powers and responsibilities under section 34 of the Protection of
Freedoms Act 2012 (“the PFA 2012”) with regard to encouraging compliance with the