Abstract
In the era of digitalisation, transformative technologies have brought unprecedented security, convenience and efficiency as well as challenges, concerns and uncertainties. One common example is facial recognition technology (FRT), which is a biometric technology capable of identifying and verifying individuals by their faces. How facial biometrics data are gathered, stored and processed, potentially without the subject’s consent or opportunity to opt-out, can pose adverse implications on people’s privacy. In the UK, the most notable FRT deployment has been in modern policing, where police forces like the South Wales Police have already trialled and adopted FRT for crime prevention purposes.This research focuses on the challenges of FRT through the prism of UK privacy law, of which Bridges is the first judicial decision on the subject. Namely, it primarily asks whether UK privacy law can adapt to the challenges posed by FRT. The first chapter contains a thorough literature review on the conception of privacy and the workflow of FRT. The second chapter investigates if there is a sufficient legal protection framework in the UK against privacy invasion. In the final two chapters, the thesis mainly addresses who might make use of FRT, for what purposes and whether privacy laws have the conceptual flexibility to react to different users. By combining doctrinal and case analysis research methods, this study finds that UK privacy law has adapted differently to different users. Regarding core public authorities, the law has little difficulty in adapting to the challenge of FRT because an individual could simply rely vertically upon Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As for private actors, even though the tort of misuse of private information has been developed more expansively in recent years, it is unclear how far it might apply to FRT.
Thesis embargoed until 31 July 2026.
| Date of Award | Jul 2022 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Gordon Anthony (Supervisor), Alessandro Corda (Supervisor) & Daithi Mac Sithigh (Supervisor) |
Keywords
- Privacy Law
- human rights
- misuse of private information
- facial recognition technology
- public private collaborations
- Article 8 of ECHR
- core public authorities
- data protection
- biometric information