The British Home Office has recommended that a Biometrics Commissioner be given extended powers over police use and retention of facial images, following a controversy earlier this year related to law enforcement authorities' storage of biometric data.A report published by the Commons Science and Technology Committee on the current and future uses of biometric data had noted a “worrying” lack of government oversight and regulation of aspects on the field. Alastair MacGregor, Biometrics Commissioner, had revealed a week earlier that that 12 million-plus custody photographs had been uploaded to a Police National Database and facial recognition software applied to them.The Home Office has written in response this week: “We agree with the Biometrics Commissioner that there is value in the provision of day-to-day, independent oversight of police use of biometrics and that such oversight should extend beyond fingerprints and DNA. ߪ We therefore recommend that the statutory responsibilities of the Biometrics Commissioner be extended to cover, at a minimum, the police use and retention of facial images.”The office also wrote that it is undertaking a policy review of the statutory basis for the retention of facial images.It also recommended that the forensics and biometric policy group be reconstituted “with a clearer mandate to analyse how developments in biometrics may compromise the effectiveness of current policy and legislation”.In its response, the office also writes that the government should explain, in the interests of the responsible use of data, how it intends to manage both the risks and benefits that arise from promoting open standards and the interoperability of biometric systems.

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