STOP mass facial recognition surveillance

Aim

Join the fight to roll back live facial recognition cameras in the UK and give legal support to people falsely flagged as criminals

Facial recognition cameras are being rolled out in the UK, posing one of the greatest threats to privacy in living memory. We need your help to stop it

Join the fight to STOP the unprecedented expansion of facial recognition surveillance in the UK.

With every penny donated, we're building a powerful national campaign - and enabling groundbreaking legal action to roll back Orwellian facial recognition.

🚨 UPDATE: It’s not over yet – back the appeal

We’re disappointed that the court ruled the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition is lawful.

But the fight is far from over. There’s never been a more important time to stand up for our rights against dystopian surveillance tech. 

Will you back the appeal?

The appeal is a chance to resolve serious legal questions about our right to privacy in the digital age.

We’re on the brink of a very different kind of society: one where cameras on every street corner could become biometric checkpoints. The public will become walking ID cards. Britain will become a nation of suspects and have to constantly prove our innocence – like Shaun did.

What we’ve already achieved

• The Met reviewed and limited its facial recognition policy
• Broad watchlist categories like “victims” and “associates” were removed
• The risks of misidentification and overuse are now firmly in the spotlight
• Shaun Thompson was awarded a payout by the Met police
• The Policing Minister recently met us to discuss a new legal framework

However, live facial recognition is far too expansive. Last year alone, the Met scanned 4.2 million people’s faces in London – more than any other European capital or Western democracy. 

What happens next

We believe the courts can – and should – ensure that facial recognition is strictly limited and used only in the most serious cases. Not to spy on millions of innocent people. 

Will you back the appeal?

This case has only been possible because of people like you.

If you can, please donate to help fund the appeal and continue the fight a free future.

This won't be easy - and we can't do it without your support.

No other democracy in the world is using live facial recognition cameras in this expansive and draconian way. We have to stop this - before it's too late.

With your support, we'll:

• Back groundbreaking legal action against police and shops' use of facial recognition
  
  
• Demand politicians roll back live facial recognition
  
  
• Give legal advice & support to people affected by live facial recognition
  
  

YOU could be next...

People up and down the country are being forced to prove that they are not criminals as a result of Orwellian live facial recognition.

This is a dangerous reversal of the presumption of innocence - the foundation of our democracy and freedom. 

They include Shaun, a community worker who was stopped on the street, interrogated for almost half an hour and threatened with arrest following a facial recognition misidentification by the Metropolitan Police.

He was walking home from a patrol with Street Fathers, a community group that provides a positive male presence for young people and takes knives off the streets. As Shaun said, "instead of working to get knives off the streets like I do, they were wasting their time with technology when they knew it had made a mistake".

With your support, he's take the Metropolitan Police to court in a joint legal challenge with the director of Big Brother Watch, demanding that the police roll back live facial recognition.

Another victim is 'Sara' (not her real name), a teenager who was falsely flagged by a facial recognition camera in Home Bargains.

She was wrongly called a criminal whilst doing her shopping, searched, forced to leave the store and wrongly told she was banned from shops and supermarkets using this technology up and down the country.

The shop admitted they got it wrong - but took no action to stop shoppers being scanned and falsely accused in future. They're still using the live facial recognition cameras.

Shaun and Sara sought our help - and we helped them tell their stories to the nation on BBC Newsnight. 

Now, we need YOUR support to stop this Orwellian nightmare for all of us.

This is why we need to STOP this

Police and private companies in the UK are increasingly using facial recognition, turning our faces into barcodes. 

The technology works by creating a 'faceprint' of everyone who passes in front of a camera — taking data as sensitive as our passport photos, often without our knowledge or consent. 

There are 6+ million surveillance cameras in the UK, making us one of the most watched nations in the world - vast numbers of cameras could be ‘modernised’ with live facial recognition software, turning us into walking ID cards and resulting in intrusion on a scale never before contemplated in a democracy.

This dangerously authoritarian surveillance is a threat to our privacy and freedoms — it has no place on the streets of Britain.

Our campaign - next steps

By backing our campaign, you can make the difference between whether we become a dystopian surveillance state or not.

You can help Shaun and others take pioneering legal action against the police and retailers to roll back live facial recognition cameras. This action could make all the difference, and we'll keep you updated every step of the way.

We brought together 180 tech experts and 65 Parliamentarians calling for an immediate stop to live facial recognition surveillance. We forced changes around the use of live facial recognition in the private retail sector and launched a report on facial recognition, Biometric Britain, in Parliament. 

Your support makes the difference. 

We're on the precipice of huge technological change. This isn't a time to stand by - it's a time to take action.

By supporting this campaign today, you'll be part of the fight back and give us the best chance of rolling back facial recognition surveillance - protecting privacy for a generation.

About us

Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future. We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change. We've won David v Goliath fights with your support before, and we will again. We fight to win.

We’re a fiercely independent, diverse, non-partisan and non-profit group of campaigners and researchers, who work to roll back the surveillance state and protect rights in parliament, the media, and the courts if we have to. We publish unique investigations and pursue powerful public campaigns to pursue real change. We work relentlessly to inform and empower the public to collectively reclaim privacy, defend our civil liberties, and protect freedoms for the future.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 25th June 2026 at 11:59pm