Met Police to use facial recognition to crack down on shoplifters

The Met Police has announced plans to use facial recognition technology to crack down on the capital’s most prolific shoplifters.

Scotland Yard says retail crime is responsible for the loss of an estimated £1.9 billion in revenue in the UK each year.

The force says more than 1,000 cases of abuse and violence against shop staff are reported annually.

At the end of September, the Met wrote to 12 major London retailers, asking them to send CCTV images of their top 30 prolific, but unidentified, offenders.

A team is using technology that maps facial features from the CCTV stills against images in Scotland Yard’s custody image database, with any matches revealed in around a minute.

The Met Police said 149 suspects had been identified from 302 CCTV stills, with some wanted for more than one offence.

On Wednesday, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley met with retail leaders to discuss how, together, police can increase the safety of frontline staff and reduce prolific offending.

Commissioner Rowley said: “We’re working with shops across the capital to target and track down criminals in a way we never have before.

“We’re pushing the boundaries and using innovation and technology to rapidly identify criminals.

“The results we’ve seen so far are game-changing. The use of facial recognition in this way could revolutionise how we investigate and solve crime.

“What’s most powerful is what we’ve learned about those involved in this offending so far. It’s clear the majority are career criminals involved in serious crime. This data and information helps us focus our efforts in an even more precise way than we originally anticipated.

“Through this tactic we’re not only improving how we protect shops and support the business community, we’re stepping further forward in identifying and tracking down serious criminals and protecting all of London’s communities.

“The scale of business crime in London is huge. To be successful we have to be precise in our approach and this is a really promising step forward.”

Earlier this year the Met Police announced a similar approach to tracking the most dangerous and predatory offenders of violence against women and girls (VAWG).

This showed the top 100 offenders in this category were responsible for a disproportionate amount of VAWG offences across the capital. The force said key suspects had links to other offending including weapons possession and street violence.