AI Matters
Why it matters
Western Australia police scanned over a million faces in facial recognition trial
The Guardian AI Police use facial recognition to scan one million faces in WA trial leading to 122 arrests
A five-month trial using surveillance vans scanned more than one million faces, led to 122 arrests and produced nine false alerts.
Why it matters
Real-time face scanning in public is expanding, and it shows both how many arrests it can produce and how often it gets things wrong.
Latest brief · Nov 2, 2026