(Guest post by Brian Mooney) My borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (H&F) has decided to spend millions on Artificial Intelligence (AI)-linked CCTV cameras and Live Facial Recognition that can pick out individuals – which are controversial due to concerns over accuracy.

The council’s Cabinet report also proposed to use AI-linked cameras to enable automatic vehicle tracking and GPS tagging. It also pushes for surveillance drones, even though the whole borough sits within a congested ‘restricted flight zone’ with special permission needed.

The stated purpose of all this tech is to work with the police (eg ‘identifying the routes taken by criminals’), even though the police may lack sufficient officer numbers to take action. Recordings would be scanned using Retrospective Facial Recognition.

H&F has long worked with the consultancy CitiSense, whose SmartLenz cameras provide for systematic tracking of vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists. Vehicles can be identified as cars, vans, HGVs, etc and even pinpointed to type and fuel. Ominously, data can be combined with air readings and used to create ‘climate solutions and policies’.

One study – as part of developing a contested Low Traffic Neighbourhood – even broke vehicle users down into residents or visitors, tracking their journeys – although we are assured over privacy!

I find it of concern that H&F has been working with Sadiq Khan’s Greater London Authority (GLA) group. The council’s plan for a feasibility study on local ‘environmental’ road pricing was in a document written for it by the GLA, which was seriously under-publicised in a consultation. Khan’s blueprint for potential road pricing – with possibilities for charging based on ‘purpose of journey’ and even ‘household income’ – could make for a real invasion of privacy.

Dubbed the most surveilled area in the UK, H&F seems to be a leader in moving for wider technologies of control.

H&F is the first London borough known to push for geofencing as a means of restricting access to roads or whole areas on ‘environmental’ grounds. It already has 500 air sensors from Vortex, a company talking up local charging for road use.

H&F was also a test site for the 5G and related tech that could be used for remote communication with vehicles, something that Khan is keen to push on to our streets. Although Khan is reported to no longer be developing road pricing systems, it is interesting that his fig-leaf promise only covered a smart, pay-per-mile option. His Transport for London has recommended pay-per-km pricing and his Mayor’s Transport Strategy actively encourages London councils to introduce charging!

In October, I asked a Public Question on what guarantees H&F could give that the new cameras could not be used for local road pricing. I just received a straight denial at the Council meeting.

Although this was probably an honest answer, I was not convinced. In the 2022 London ULEZ consultation, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner frowned on dual-use of the policing cameras, but fell short of saying it was illegal.

In June, the government abolished both the surveillance camera code and the post of the Commissioner. New guidelines are being written, but for now, data protection law does not seem to provide a good safety net. In any case, H&F could just bring in totally new tracking cameras for road pricing, and I’m sure that charges could be set high enough to cover their cost.

• Brian Mooney is a retired IT consultant who lives in Hammersmith and Fulham.