According to multiple outlets, police in the United Kingdom have allegedly conducted hundreds of facial recognition searches on the country’s passport photo database. “Documents obtained by Big Brother Watch reveal that police are increasingly searching 150 million UK passport and immigration database with facial recognition,” Big Brother Watch wrote. “Jointly with Privacy International, Big Brother Watch are set to pursue legal action against the Home Office & the Met Police,” it added. We've just uncovered documents revealing police are increasingly searching all our passport photos with facial recognition. This means that police can ID check us anytime, anywhere. Readhttps://t.co/ZtGK7AoLof — Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) August 8, 2025 The Telegraph has more: Police have conducted hundreds of facial recognition searches on Britain’s passport photo database in a “historic breach of the right to privacy”, The Telegraph can reveal. The number of requests by police to use passport and immigration information to identify criminals has “skyrocketed”, according to campaigners, despite concerns about civil liberties. Dozens of forces across Britain now use retrospective facial recognition technology, which allows them to identify suspects on CCTV or doorbell camera footage without leaving their desks. Ministers say that the system speeds up investigations, but opponents say it has become a branch of an “Orwellian” surveillance state. Searches for facial matches are ordinarily restricted to the police’s own database of mugshots, but officers have increasingly been requesting to use the Home Office’s repository of more than 50 million passport photos. “We’ve obtained documents showing ALL our passport photos are being secretly searched in a police facial recognition database. A national ID system has been built by the backdoor – without the public or parliament’s consent. We’re taking action,” Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo said. BREAKING: We’ve obtained documents showing ALL our passport photos are being secretly searched in a police facial recognition database A national ID system has been built by the backdoor – without the public or parliament’s consent We’re taking actionhttps://t.co/qVScQHFjNl — Silkie Carlo (@silkiecarlo) August 7, 2025 Big Brother Watch shared more: Every passport holder SCANNED The Government is turning all of our passport photos into mugshots, building a giant, Orwellian police database. A national ID system has been built by the backdoor – act now to #StopFacialRecognition. pic.twitter.com/kj9tHTwUMO — Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) August 10, 2025 “The Government has taken all of our passport photos and secretly turned them into mugshots to build a giant, Orwellian police database without the public’s knowledge or consent and with absolutely no democratic or legal mandate,” Carlo said. “This has led to repeated, unjustified and ongoing intrusions on the entire population’s privacy. This astonishing revelation shows both our privacy and democracy are at risk from secretive AI policing, and that members of the public are now subject to the inevitable risk of misidentifications and injustice,” Carlo continued. HUGE NEWS: Thanks to YOU, we’ve raised the funds needed to take on Orwellian live facial recognition in court. This significant milestone has been achieved so fast & it's down to every single one of you. See you in courthttps://t.co/7WxldldTMC pic.twitter.com/ZbFJJKQYat — Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) August 9, 2025 Biometric Update provided further details: A previous investigation by Liberty Investigates and The Telegraph found police have been running facial recognition against the passport database since 2019, and that the practice had accelerated after then-Policing Minister Chris Philp suggested passport and immigration data should be used in investigations of shoplifting, burglary and theft. Privacy International notes the Home Office has since denied the databases are used to investigate those crimes. Big Brother Watch filed Freedom of Information (FoI) requests which revealed that police searches of the passport database began with 2 in 2020, but reached 417 in 2023. The immigration database was searched 16 times in 2023 and 102 times in 2024, according to Big Brother Watch. The figures for the passport database end in October, 2024, but indicate police had performed 377 searches of the two civilian databases in the first 9 months of the year. Immigration search figures end in mid-May of this year, showing 34 searches in the first four-and-a-half months of 2025. Biometric Update reported in May that UK police had searched Home Office’s immigration database 110 times in the past year. The databases contain an estimated 150 million photos, combined, 58 million of them for biometric passports. They were enrolled in a facial recognition library without parliament being informed, and no public policy has been published to govern the searches.