Two people have been arrested in Chelmsford city centre after being identified using new facial recognition equipment.

Essex Police deployed two live facial recognition (LFR) vans in the city centre yesterday (4 October), focusing on wanted people in connection with local offences.

The technology saw six positive alerts, assisting with the arrests of two women, one in connection with an assault and the other in connection with shoplifting.

Three men and two women were also arrested on suspicion of theft and shoplifting, but they were not identified using LFR.

Det Chief Insp Ian Hughes said: “This was our 13th deployment of the LFR vans, and their use has now led to 23 arrests,”

“It has proved really effective at finding people wanted in connection with investigations and ensuring we can get suspects into custody and help progress investigations.

“This was another really positive deployment with arrests made, but also providing a fantastic opportunity to speak to the public and show them how the technology works.”

Mr Hughes added: “The technology utilises CCTV camera feeds to LFR software to scan faces against a predetermined database or ‘watch list’ of people of interest.”

“The scanning of an image takes less than a second.

“The data/image of those not on the watchlist is automatically and immediately deleted and not stored.

“When there is a positive match, appropriate action will be taken by officers on the ground to confirm ID and then assess what the next action is to be taken.”