Since 2023, the use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology by police forces in the UK has expanded from the first couple of pilots into a nationwide programme supported by central Home Office funding. In the early days, many forces trialled the technology under mutual aid agreements and Bedfordshire Police was one of those, using LFR vans and officers from South Wales Police to work at the Bedford River Festival, a large family event, in 2024. 

The deployment was seen as a success, with the force making 3 arrests over the two days, based on 7 confirmed alerts from their database, with the system scanning over 200,000 faces. Importantly, however, there were no false alerts generated by the system.

When the opportunity came in 2025 to bid for Home Office funding to host two LFR vans, the force were successful and now, with a dedicated LFR team, are deploying regularly to town centres and other locations across the county.

The team at Bedfordshire Police have worked hard to take on the lessons from other forces’ use of LFR. They have put in place their operational guidelines and constantly review the use of the technology through their new AI Ethics Board.

Following a programme of public engagement, the technology is used on a weekly basis in support of force priorities to counter domestic violence and reduce violence associated with knife crime in town centres, as well as being used to identify people wanted on outstanding court warrants and undertake checks on registered sex offenders.

The Home Office programme for the LFR vans was to provide access to this technology for all forces in England and Wales and the Bedfordshire LFR team are now working closely with their colleagues in neighbouring forces across the East of England in support of their operations both with the vans and staff to operate them when required.

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