Policy paper

Immigration Enforcement: live facial recognition legal mandate

The legal mandate describes the authorities and legal powers governing Immigration Enforcement use of live facial recognition.

• From: Home Office and Immigration Enforcement
• Published: 5 November 2025
• Last updated: 24 February 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 24 February 2026

     Updated to version 2.0 of the guidance.

  2. 5 November 2025

     First published.

This was published under the 2024 to 2026 Starmer Labour government

Documents

Immigration Enforcement: live facial recognition legal mandate (accessible version)

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Immigration Enforcement: live facial recognition legal mandate

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Details

Live facial recognition technology (LFR) is primarily used by Immigration Enforcement (IE) as a precision tactic to locate people who are attempting to return in breach of an extant Deportation Order (DO).