Police use facial recognition to scan one million faces in WA trial leading to 122 arrests

Deployments of surveillance vans over five months result in nine false alerts and led officers to engage with 146 registered sex offenders

More than a million people have had their faces scanned in a trial of real-time facial recognition technology in Western Australia, resulting in 122 arrests and nine incorrect alerts.

WA police said under the five-month trial, which concluded on Saturday, the technology scanned 1,380,882 faces after 100 deployments across 43 regional and metropolitan locations.

Alongside the 122 arrests, the alerts led officers to engage with 146 registered sex offenders and locate 10 people for a welfare check.

The deployments included three operations at the Perth Royal Show, where 223,749 faces were scanned, resulting in 15 alerts, three arrests and seven “interactions” with registered sex offenders.