AFR Locate led to 37 arrests or disposals in South Wales

In September 2019 the High Court found that South Wales Police's live facial recognition had led to arrests or disposals in 37 cases. Existing methods had not been able to locate those people.

  • 2 an organization

    South Wales Police made arrests or disposals in 37 cases where existing methods had not located the person, by the court's account of its evidence.

  • Not rated society

    The judgment does not say what the 37 people were wanted for, so the effect on public safety cannot be established.

Depth runs from 1, a convenience or time saved, to 5, a life or a livelihood preserved.

Status
Reported benefit.
Evidence

foundstudiedreportedclaimed

An independent court document supports the benefit.

Compared with

Existing methods of locating wanted people. Assumed without a measurement.

The system’s part
Not isolated. The figure of 37 comes from police evidence that the court accepted without a comparison of its own. A police operator reviewed each match before officers acted. The claimant's expert referred to the data sets on which the system is trained.
Limits
Not yet checked.
Costs and harms
Not yet checked.
Later
Taken to court, 11 August 2020. The Court of Appeal allowed the claimant's appeal on three grounds, including the legal framework for the use. It rejected the ground on proportionality.

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Benefit type
Reduced Violence
System
AFR Locate, using NEC's NeoFace Watch software
Made by
NEC (now North Gate Public Services (UK) Ltd)
Used by
South Wales Police
Where
Cardiff and South Wales, United Kingdom
Stage
In a pilot
Date
, when the source was published
Kind
Aggregate result
Broad benefit
Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events, Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings
Collections
Scrutiny and findings, Cross-border records
Last revised
31 October 2026

Sources

  1. Court document, by authors with no tie to the system.

    High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Divisional Court sitting at Cardiff (Haddon-Cave LJ and Swift J). R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police & Ors [2019] EWHC 2341 (Admin), judgment of 4 September 2019. Find Case Law copy.

    However, the evidence demonstrates that, during the present trial period, this new technology has resulted in arrests or disposals in 37 cases where the individual in question had not been capable of location by existing methods.

Details

AI system

Workflow

Watchlists were built from custody photographs for the purpose of each deployment. Cameras on a marked van fed live images to the software. A police operator checked each possible match before officers intervened.

Follow-up

Conditions for replication

Each deployment is open to the public and limited in time and place. Images of people who are not on a watchlist are processed and discarded at once.

Entry details

Sector

Policing / public protection.

Purpose

NEC built NeoFace Watch to compare faces captured on live CCTV with watchlist images and flag possible matches to an operator.

Not yet checked: model, release, provider, role, configuration, inputs and outputs, autonomy, human oversight, AI contribution, beneficiaries, reach, distribution and access, duration, every measurement question, every money question, ownership and control, dependencies, cross-border connections, geopolitical implications, replication attempts, availability, institutional decision, grounds, action and result, success criterion, every evidence question, observed or intended, alternative assessments, related entries, other identifiers, category mappings.

Cite this record

Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). AFR Locate led to 37 arrests or disposals in South Wales (AIBD-0835). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 31 October 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-0835.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 4.0)

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