By Joel Adams For Mailonline
Published: 07:28 BST, 21 May 2019 | Updated: 14:23 BST, 21 May 2019
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The first major legal challenge to police use of automated facial recognition surveillance will begin in Cardiff today.
A man whose image was taken while doing some Christmas shopping in Cardiff, by cameras operated by South Wales Police, says the system breached his human rights, blaming weak regulation.
Civil rights group Liberty, who will be representing office worker Ed Bridges, has even compared the current use of the tool to taking DNA or fingerprints without consent.
It says it breached Bridges' human rights to privacy, freedom of assembly, and freedom from discrimination.
South Wales Police defends using AFR but has not commented on the case.
Ed Bridges, above, will be represented by campaign group Liberty today at the Cardiff Civil Justice and Family Centre as he argues facial recognition cameras breached his human rights
Mr Bridges told the BBC that in December 2017: 'I popped out of the office to do a bit of Christmas shopping and on the main pedestrian shopping street in Cardiff, there was a police van.
'By the time I was close enough to see the words 'automatic facial recognition' on the van, I had already had my data captured by it.
'That struck me as quite a fundamental invasion of my privacy.'
He was also 'recognised' by the cameras at a peaceful protest against the arms trade, in 2018.
His legal challenge argues the use of the tool breached his human right to privacy as well as data protection and equality laws.
Campaigners say the use of the technology (file image) is a step too far towards a police state
South Wales Police piloted facial recognition technology along with the Met and one other force
The Metropolitan Police uses facial recognition technology called NeoFace, developed by Japanese IT firm NEC, which matches faces up to a so-called watch list of offenders wanted by the police and courts for existing offences. Cameras scan faces in its view measuring the structure of each face, creating a digital version that is searched up against the watch list. If a match is
