The government will equip seven police forces in England with new live facial recognition (LFR) vans in a bid to trace suspects of serious crimes, including murder and sexual assaults, more effectively.

The Home Office announced that it would give the forces shared access to 10 new vans, which can scan the faces of people passing by and match them against a database of suspects. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the technology will be used in a "targeted way" and has so far been responsible for hundreds of arrests in London, where it has already been deployed.

However, LFR has been strongly criticised by civil liberties groups for the potential to invade privacy . The Big Brother Watch campaign group said the "significant expansion of the surveillance state" was "alarming".

How does L

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