The London Metropolitan Police have turned their focus to illegal e-bike use as investigators attach illegal use of the vehicles to the hot-button issue of phone snatching
The biggest police force in the country is turning to facial recognition technology to stamp out the use of illegal e-bikes – as concerns over the service’s bid to clamp down on phone-snatching grow.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the technology is one of the biggest innovations in fighting crime in decades and has already helped catch thousands of criminals. E-bikes have become a growing concern in the capital because of their increasing use for dangerous riding and phone-snatching.
Sir Mark said police cameras can work fast enough to scan the faces of illegal e-bike riders who can then be stopped in specialised operations.
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Ministers are seeking to ramp up police use of facial recognition to fight crime. But the technology has faced criticism, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission describing the Met Police’s policy on use of live facial recognition technology as “unlawful” earlier this year.
The equalities watchdog said the rules and safeguards around the force’s use of the technology “fall short” and could have a “chilling effect” on individuals’ rights when used at protests.
Currently, police use three types of facial recognition: retrospective, used in criminal investigations to search images from crime scenes against images of people taken on arrest; live, using live video footage of people passing cameras and comparing their images with a list of wanted people; and operator-initiated, a mobile app that allows officers to check someone’s identity without arresting them.
The Home Office funded £12.6 million in facial recognition last year, with £2.8 million spent on national live facial recognition, including mobile vans and fixed location pilots. Sir Mark said the Met has been seizing e-bikes at an increasing rate.
He added: “This issue comes up in every borough. It comes up whether you talk about it in inner city boroughs, or Westminster, and then in outer London, in places like Bromley and Kingston, it keeps coming up. That’s why we’re making a big point about this.”
Sir Mark said “tremendously powerful” facial recognition technology has helped the force arrest the best part of 1,000 criminals over the last year, including those guilty of serious offences and sex crimes. He said: “It has many uses and it will pick up people that speed, so it will pick up people on e-bikes and in all sorts of situations.
“It’s one of the biggest innovations in fighting crime we’ve seen in decades and that’s why we’re investing more in it, and Londoners will see more bad people taken off the streets through facial recognition than they have in previous years.”
Sir Mark added that rules around e-bikes and e-scooters are clear and “pretty tough”, with e-bike motors required to cut out at 15.5mph and e-scooters banned in London unless they are hire scooters.
Police have found some are illegally modified to reach faster speeds or to enable them to be powered without the pedals being turned. Conversion kits are available online for as little as £300. E-bikes travelling above 15.5mph are treated as motorbikes, which must be registered, taxed and insured, and are seized by police if they break the law.
Once an illegal e-bike has been seized, the hazardous and recyclable parts are removed and the bike is crushed down. The crackdown is part of phase two of the force’s A New Met For London plan launched on Tuesday.
