Joint letters to the Information Commissioner and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police on use of PimEyes

As part of our campaign 'The End of Privacy in Public' and our wider work monitoring developments of facial recognition technology (FRT) in the UK, we continue to to challenge the government, the police and the private sector regarding their unfettered roll out of FRT in the UK. 

In May 2024, we co-signed a letter with a coalition of UK based NGOs regarding a recent investigation that exposed The Metropolitan Police's (the Met) use of website PimEyes. PimEyes acts as a facial recognition ‘search engine’ allowing users to upload photos and identify where images of an individual appear elsewhere on the internet. An investigation by Liberty Investigates and i News revealed the website was visited by the Met's computers 2,337 times in just one three month period. PimEyes could be accessed by any officer or staff member without official records of searches or safeguards around whose photos are being searched. After the Met was contacted as part of the investigation, it confirmed that it had subsequently blocked access to PimEyes from its devices. We have also previously raised concerns about PimEyes.

Letters were sent to John Edwards, Information Commissioner and Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service demanding for an investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office into this potential breach of data protection law.