Suffolk Police will scan faces in Bury St Edmunds town centre on Wednesday 4 November. In August the van saw 51,833 faces in a day here and made no arrests.
Suffolk Police will use live facial recognition cameras in Bury St Edmunds town centre on Wednesday 4 November. It is the second time the van has come to the town in ten weeks.
The force announced the dates on 26 October (Suffolk Constabulary). Bury is the middle day of a three-day tour of Suffolk town centres:
- Lowestoft town centre, Tuesday 3 November
- Bury St Edmunds town centre, Wednesday 4 November
- Ipswich town centre, Thursday 5 November
The force has not said which streets in Bury the van will park on, or for how many hours. It is using one van and its equipment, lent for the three days by Bedfordshire Police.
What happened last time in Bury
The van was last in Bury town centre on Wednesday 26 August. The force publishes a record of every deployment on its live facial recognition page. For that day in Bury it records:
- 51,833 faces seen by the cameras
- a watchlist of 793 people
- 2 alerts, both correct matches
- 1 intervention by officers
- no arrests
Bury was the force’s second-busiest deployment by faces seen. It is also the only one of the six on the record to end without an arrest. Ipswich, the next day, saw 27,531 faces against a watchlist of 771 and produced two arrests.
The force record shows no incorrect alerts at any of its six deployments since February 2025.
| Deployment | Faces seen | Watchlist | Alerts | Arrests |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ipswich town centre, 22 February 2025 | 47,056 | 303 | 5 | 5 |
| First Light Festival, Lowestoft, 21 June 2025 | 72,072 | 274 | 3 | 3 |
| First Light Festival, Lowestoft, 20 June 2026 | 100,308 | 790 | 2 | 1 |
| Lowestoft, 25 August 2026 | 3,226 | 571 | 0 | 2 |
| Bury St Edmunds, 26 August 2026 | 51,833 | 793 | 2 | 0 |
| Ipswich, 27 August 2026 | 27,531 | 771 | 5 | 2 |
The figures are as the force publishes them. Its Lowestoft entry for 25 August records two arrests from no alerts, and the force does not explain the difference.
How it works
The cameras compare faces passing the van against a watchlist drawn up for that day. The force says the list holds people wanted for crimes, people subject to court orders and people who pose a risk to the public.
An operator checks every alert before officers approach anyone. On the force’s account:
- if you are not on the watchlist, your face cannot be matched
- your biometric data is deleted immediately and automatically
- images that cause an alert are deleted within 24 hours
- the CCTV footage the system uses is kept for up to 31 days
Sergeant Anthony Welford of the force’s County Partnership Prevention Hub said: “If you pass through an area where LFR is in operation and you are not a person we are seeking to locate, your image is automatically and immediately deleted.”
Tim Passmore, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk, said the technology “has huge potential to bring criminals to justice and prevent crime”.
What it means for you
If you are in the town centre on 4 November, expect a marked van and uniformed officers. The force says officers are there to answer questions about the technology, and that people did stop to talk at past deployments.
You do not have to walk past it. The force’s own page says that choosing to avoid a deployment “is not grounds on its own for us to have any interaction with you”.
The force publishes its policy, its data protection impact assessment and its equality impact assessment on the same live facial recognition page. Questions can go to the address listed there.
We will add the results for Bury to this page once the force publishes them.
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