{"id":4625,"date":"2025-09-15T10:39:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T10:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=4625"},"modified":"2026-02-20T13:37:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T13:37:48","slug":"home-office-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=4625","title":{"rendered":"Live Facial Recognition in Policing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Shabana Mahmood&nbsp;The Secretary of State for the Home Department<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would like to use this statement to address the subject of this weekend\u2019s events. On Saturday, well over 100,000 protesters marched in London. Many were exercising the ancient right to peaceful protest,\u2014but not everyone did. Some turned on the brave police officers who were there to keep the peace; 26 officers were injured and 24 protesters were arrested. Those violent thugs will face the full force of the law. Those who turned to violence on Saturday do not represent what this country really is. When a foreign billionaire calls on our citizens to fight against our ancient democracy, I know that is met by the vast&nbsp;majority&nbsp;with a shake of the head. That is because we are in truth a tolerant country, and, yes, a diverse one, too. You can be English and have roots here that stretch back 1,000 years, but you can also be English and look like me. The&nbsp;St George\u2019s cross and the&nbsp;Union Jack&nbsp;belong to us all. They are symbols of unity\u2014a kingdom united\u2014and must never be used to divide us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>John Whittingdale&nbsp;Conservative, Maldon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an earlier answer, the&nbsp;Minister&nbsp;referred to the increasing use by police of live facial recognition. While that may well have some effect on tackling crime, it is being used without any legal framework and no national instructions. Will she say when those will be put in place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sarah Jones&nbsp;The Minister of State, Home Department<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Facial recognition is being used in a controlled way for high harm individuals. There is guidance about how it should be used, but I am happy to have a further conversation with the right hon. Gentleman about that, as I am aware that Members from across the House have raised the issue of the framework within which it operates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir John questioned the Home Secretary on the use of live facial recognition by police, highlighting the lack of a legal framework and asking when national guidelines will be established.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5692,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4625\/revisions\/5692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}