The UK government has secretly been allowing police forces to search over 150 million passport and immigration database photos with Orwellian facial recognition technology. 

The number of police mass facial recognition searches in passport and immigration databases is skyrocketing.  Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the number of searches of the passport database surged from 2 in 2020 to 417 in 2023, and there was an almost sevenfold increase in searches of the immigration database from 16  in 2023 to 102 in 2024.

By using these databases as giant facial recognition watchlists, we are all at risk not only of profound invasions of privacy but misidentifications and injustice. It is the equivalent of the police secretly putting us all in a lineup of criminal suspects for identification without our knowledge.

In the video below, Big Brother Watch briefly explains what the UK government is surreptitiously doing and why it affects everyone with a passport and, possibly in the future, driving licences.

As one member of the public said, “We’re not far off from people being dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night because the computer has said they’ve done something, which they haven’t.”

Together with Privacy International, Big Brother Watch are calling for a suspension of facial recognition searches of the passport and immigration databases and has made preparations to pursue legal action against the Home Office and Metropolitan Police.  You can learn more about their campaign to stop mass facial recognition surveillance and the associated legal action HERE.

Further reading:

• When cameras take over policing, innocent people pay the price, LBC via Big Brother Watch, 31 July 2025
• Murder prediction tools and WhatsApp arrests, is Black Mirror already here? City AM via Big Brother Watch, 25 April 2025
• As a carer, I’m outraged by the Government’s mass bank spying powers, Big Brother Watch, 25 April 2025
• UK Government hushes up its Apple data grab, Unherd via Big Brother Watch, 15 March 2025

The Expose Urgently Needs Your Help…

Can you please help to keep the lights on with The Expose’s honest, reliable, powerful and truthful journalism?

Your Government & Big Tech organisations
try to silence & shut down The Expose.

So we need your help to ensure
we can continue to bring you the
facts the mainstream refuses to.

The government does not fund us
to publish lies and propaganda on their
behalf like the Mainstream Media.

Instead, we rely solely on your support. So
please support us in our efforts to bring
you honest, reliable, investigative journalism
today. It’s secure, quick and easy.

Please choose your preferred method below to show your support.

Stay Updated!

Stay connected with News updates by Email

Daily Digest

US News Posts

UK News Posts

World News Posts

All News Posts

Are You a Human? 4 + 4 =

Opinion: History will not remember Keir Starmer kindly … if it remembers him at all

Targeted Individuals: Once you are aware, at least you can protect yourself

Is This the Beginning of the End for UK Asylum Hotels?

mRNA vaccines not only cause covid, but post-vaccination infections are far more dangerous, a new study finds

Rhoda Wilson

While previously it was a hobby culminating in writing articles for Wikipedia (until things made a drastic and undeniable turn in 2020) and a few books for private consumption, since March 2020 I have become a full-time researcher and writer in reaction to the global takeover that came into full view with the introduction of covid-19. For most of my life, I have tried to raise awareness that a small group of people planned to take over the world for their own benefit. There was no way I was going to sit back quietly and simply let them do it once they made their final move.

See Full Bio