Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has proposed a new Conservative plan requiring police to utilize facial recognition technology and track geo-tagged stolen goods to improve crime investigation rates.

Key Points

• The Conservative "Take Back Our Streets" plan mandates that officers run suspect images from CCTV and doorbells through facial recognition software.
• Police would be required to investigate stolen items, such as phones and vehicles, when geo-location data pings a specific suspect's address.
• The proposal includes hiring 10,000 additional police officers, funded by an estimated £800 million per year.
• Chris Philp aims to return operational guidance powers to the Home Secretary, reversing a 2014 decision that transferred these responsibilities to the College of Policing.
• The existing national facial recognition database currently contains images of approximately 10 million individuals.

Why it Matters

These proposals represent a significant shift toward centralized government control over police operational standards and the mandatory adoption of AI-driven surveillance tools. If implemented, the policy could fundamentally change how local forces prioritize investigations and interact with digital evidence in daily policing.