Guidance

Facial image search requests: caseworker guidance

Staff guidance on handling requests to conduct searches against the passport and immigration facial image databases.

Documents

Details

UK Visas and Immigration and HM Passport Office guidance for staff about how to consider and handle requests from UK law enforcement organisations (LEOs) to conduct searches against the passport and immigration facial image databases.

This guidance seeks to ensure that Home Office staff understand and comply with the legal requirements. When they consider a request from a LEO to search a facial image, they must be satisfied there is a legal basis for performing the search, and that the search is both necessary and proportionate.

Memorandums of understanding between Home Office and LEOs are in place to formalise the framework set out in this policy.

Updates to this page

Published 15 September 2025
Last updated 22 September 2025 show all updates
  1. There are two changes to the template, one concerning ensuring that LEOs check their own databases before approaching HM Passport Office and / or UK Visas and Immigration and the other is to make it clear that any identified matches that are shared are not to be treated as an expert opinion.

  2. First published.

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