Premier League steps up policing tech with £3.42m facial recognition trial

The Premier League is funding a £3.42 million trial of live facial recognition technology at top-flight football matches in London as part of a wider push to expand the use of policing technology across English football.

Documents published by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) show that the Premier League is providing approximately £3.42 million through Cheshire Constabulary to support the Metropolitan Police’s deployment of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology on Premier League matchdays.

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The funding was approved under Section 93 of the Police Act 1996, which allows police authorities to accept donations and sponsorship. However, the legislation does not itself provide the legal basis for facial recognition. Each deployment must separately satisfy Metropolitan Police requirements relating to legality, necessity and proportionality.

How the technology will be used

The Metropolitan Police says LFR cameras will monitor defined areas around match venues and compare the faces of people passing through them against a police watchlist.

The watchlists can include individuals wanted for serious offences, as well as people subject to football banning orders. The stated objective is to identify individuals considered a potential risk before they enter stadiums.

MOPAC said the project is intended to assess whether facial recognition can make football policing safer and more efficient, including helping officers identify people wanted in connection with serious crimes and violence against women and girls.

Each deployment must be authorised by an officer of at least superintendent rank, while supporters must be informed when the technology is being used.

The Met says biometric data relating to people who do not generate a match is deleted immediately. Watchlists are erased within 24 hours of each deployment, while information linked to a genuine alert is generally deleted within 31 days unless there is a lawful reason for retaining it.

Wider investment in football policing

The facial recognition project forms part of a broader Premier League investment in policing technology across England.

Reports have valued the wider partnership at up to $13.5 million, with funding also supporting technologies such as drones in the West Midlands and artificial intelligence-based crowd modelling in Merseyside.

The initiative comes as police forces increasingly explore technology to manage large football crowds, identify offenders and improve matchday security.

Privacy concerns remain

The expansion of facial recognition has nevertheless attracted criticism from civil liberties groups, which have raised concerns about privacy, mass surveillance and the possibility of misidentification.

Organisations including Liberty and Big Brother Watch have questioned the use of biometric surveillance in public spaces and called for stronger safeguards.

The Metropolitan Police, however, maintains that LFR can help officers locate serious offenders more efficiently while operating within established safeguards.

In April, the High Court rejected a legal challenge to the force’s use of live facial recognition, ruling that existing Metropolitan Police policies provided sufficient safeguards for its deployment.

The Premier League-backed trials will now provide further evidence on how the technology can be used to support policing at football matches while addressing ongoing concerns over privacy and civil liberties.