British Transport Police scanned the faces of 537,697 people at London railway stations over six months. The trial produced one alert, and that alert was false. It cost £320,786 ($424,000) The police responded by extending the trial by four months and expanding the area. Since then, 926,912 people have been scanned in total. The system has made only three correct identifications, and every one of them ended with no action. The arrest column still reads zero. The watchlist, meanwhile, has grown from 381 names to 862. Transport for London welcomed the expansion and said it would tackle violence against women and girls. More than half of the police forces in England and Wales now scan faces in public, and every failed trial is treated as a reason to scan more of them.

Reclaim The Net: Free Speech, Privacy, Digital Rights

British Transport Police Facial Recognition Trial Scanned 926,912 People With Zero Arrests

Half a million faces scanned, one false alert, and still the experiment got an encore.