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Face[Rec]
Face[Rec]
Dr Diana Miranda (School of Law, Politics and Social Sciences) University of Stirling and Dr Lachlan Urquhart (School of Law) University of Edinburgh are co-leading the new Face[Rec] Project funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research Main Grant Scheme.
The Face[REC] project aims to explore the socio-technical, ethical, and governance impacts of live facial recognition (LFR) use in Scottish policing. LFR utilises biometric data and computer vision algorithms to match faces scanned in public spaces with images stored in databases. Through bottom-up futures-based co-design methods and top-down desk-based legal analysis, the project’s objectives are to:
Critically analyse the fragmented UK LFR regulatory landscape, including comparison with recent European shifts in the EU AI Act.
Engage with citizens and police using co-design and futuring led methods to elicit governance, ethical, and socio-technical concerns about LFR and set regulatory priorities through two research workshops.
Design and evaluate a physical card-deck tool (‘Face[REC] Cards’) to enable collective deliberation between policymakers, academics, police, and regulators about governing LFR now and in the future.
Contribute to debates around LFR legislation and oversight through a final multi-stakeholder evaluation workshop, policy brief, and academic paper.
We ask: How should LFR be governed to ensure a more ethical approach in Scotland? Does LFR regulation address citizens’ needs and priorities, and what are their future concerns? How can co-design cards translate citizen and policing perspectives for discussion on LFR regulation?
The project runs from Summer 2026 until late Spring 2027. If you are interested or want to get in touch for further information contact Diana.Miranda@stir.ac.uk or Lachlan.urquhart@ed.ac.uk
Dr Diana Miranda
Dr Diana Miranda
Dr Diana Miranda is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Stirling and interim Director of the Centre for Research into Information Surveillance and Privacy (CRISP), a multidisciplinary centre focused on the impacts of technologically mediated surveillance and member of the Emotional AI Lab. Diana’s work sits at the intersection of criminological and sociological research, exploring emerging biometric and data driven technologies. Her research aims to understand the impacts of surveillance on our bodies and identities through processes of technologically mediated suspicion. She works across domains such as criminal investigation, predictive policing, smart cities, security of borders, and prisons. She has a forthcoming book on biometric technologies (Routeledge 2027).
Dr Lachlan Urquhart
Dr Lachlan Urquhart
Dr Lachlan Urquhart is a Senior Lecturer in Technology Law and Human-Computer Interaction at the Edinburgh Law School, University of Edinburgh. He is Founder and Director of the Regulation and Design (RAD) Lab (in the Institute of Design Informatics), is a Director of the Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance, and Privacy (CRISP), is a member (and former co-director 2021-2025) of the Scottish Research Centre for IP and Technology Law, Management team for the Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing Centre for Doctoral Training, and a member of the Emotional AI Lab. His research explores the design, legal and socio-technical aspects of new technologies in society. He has been an investigator on projects totalling nearly £17m, published over 70 papers and recently completed two books:
Lachlan Urquhart Accountable Design: Bringing Law into Human-Centred Computing (CUP:2026)
Lilian Edwards, Catalina Goanta and Lachlan Urquhart, Law, Policy and the Internet (Hart: 2026).
Project Team Affiliations
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