FOI 448/25

REQUEST

 

1. How much money has been spent on facial recognition IN TOTAL, by South Wales police? A figure is available for 23/24 publicly, but not an entire amount to date.

 

2. How much money has been spent on facial recognition PER ARREST, by south Wales police? Publicly displayed exemption does not apply as above.

 

3. Do any current or former senior officers have any stake in any of the technologies, or organisations involved with any element of the facial recognition? This includes any payments, stocks or shares, agreements etc

 

4. Please provide copies of all privacy impact assessments completed before, during and after the use of the technology on Saturday 15th March 2025, in the area surrounding the millennium stadium in Cardiff centre

 

5. Please advise how south Wales police believe the use of facial recognition is compliant with part (C) of GDPR regulations which require data minimisation? This question relates to the collection, not the retention, of data

 

6. Please provide any legal advice, documentation and meeting minutes in relation to South Wales police's determinations in respect of part (C) of GDPR

 

7. How many "false flag" identifications have resulted in an arrest?

 

8. How many arrests have resulted from facial recognition use by South Wales IN TOTAL?

 

9. What was the specific breakdown of those arrests by race

 

10. How many correct identifications have been made by facial recognition that have not resulted in an arrest?

 

RESPONSE

 

Your request for information has now been considered and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.

 

Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires South Wales Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: 

 

(a) states that fact,

(b) specifies the exemption in question and

(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

 

In relation to your particular request, the following exemption applies:

Section 12 – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

 

We consulted with our Digital Services Department who have advised that in relation to Q’s 2, 8, 9 and 10 the data you have requested is not routinely collated in the format that would easily answer your query, therefore, to accurately answer your request a manual review of the occurrences in order to determine if FRT resulted in an arrest.

 

Considering RFR alone, there were 11062 matches returned for further investigation. Assuming conducting the search, reviewing the required information and reporting back takes a maximum of 10 minutes per occurrence, this would take 1843 hours to complete this work for RFR alone. The review would require identification of all the occurrences that have a positive RFR match, then determining that the subject of the match was confirmed by the OIC and then that this person was arrested.

 

In order to establish a specific breakdown of those arrests by race a manual review across LFR, RFR and OIFR. Considering RFR alone, a further 10 minutes would be required to the above time to obtain the relevant information for the period of time. this would increase the time taken to complete this FOI by a further 1843. LFR and OIFR would be in addition to this

 

To establish where correct identification has been made but not resulted in an arrest would require a further manual review of each record across LFR, OIFR and RFR. Assuming a further 10 minutes would be required to determine if an arrest has been made, considering RFR along would add a further 1843 hours of work to the total for this request. OIFR and RFR would be in addition to this.

 

In respect of supporting the requestor in obtaining information for 8, 9, and 10, I have considered reasonable options to support them in trying to access the information however the volume of manual review for the data requested is not achievable. I have considered whether shorter time periods would be suitable however considering that the average number of matches per month since 2017 is 131. Assuming a minimum of 10 minutes for each aspect of the request, it would be 21 hours per question for each month requested.

 

It is estimated that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the "appropriate level" as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

  

In the case of the police service, the appropriate limit is £450 which has been calculated to equate to a total of 18 hours of work.

 

If any part of the request exceeds the fees limit, then Section 12 applies to the whole request.

 

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a refusal notice.

 

Excess cost removes the forces obligation under the Freedom of Information Act, however under Section 16 – Duty to provide advice and assistance, an authority is required to offer an applicant the opportunity to redefine their request within the cost limit. If you were to remove Q’s 2, 8, 9 & 10 we may be able to assist with the remainder of your request however please note that further exemptions may apply. Please find below a link that may be helpful.

canlyniadau-lleoliadau-results-of-deployments-for-live-facial-recognition-lfr.pdf