Recent suggestions that policing could use facial recognition more widely – including to check against the UK passport database to identify shoplifters – prompted an outcry from some MPs, academics and campaigners; but Dr Asress Gikay, Senior Lecturer in AI, Disruptive Innovation and Law at London’s Brunel University, believes the benefit the tech delivers, public support, and existing safeguards mean campaigns to stop the police use of facial recognition are likely to fail.