Reaaliaikainen kasvojentunnistus ja teknologiset kuvitelmat Ison-Britannian kriminaalipolitiikassa [Live facial recognition and technological imaginaries in the politics of criminal justice in the UK]

In recent years, police forces across the United Kingdom have tested live facial recognition in pub-lic spaces. Although civil society groups and members of parliament have criticized the inaccuracy of these surveillance tools and a lack of regulation, their use has steadily expanded. This article examines the impact of future visions of live facial recognition on criminal justice policy debates in the UK. The theoretical framework of this article is based on the sociology of expectations. According to this field, technological imaginaries structure political discussion by presenting speculative future visions as inevitable and desirable, while excluding alternative futures. Utilizing this framework, I analyze the development of parliamentary debates related to live facial recognition in the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2025. The empirical material was collected from the Hansard parliamentary archive and analyzed using qualitative thematic content analysis. Technological imaginaries influenced digital surveillance policy in addition to external events and research data. Fueled by the AI boom, optimistic visions have recently become more prominent than earlier cautionary imaginaries regarding an Orwellian surveillance society, and the use of faci-al recognition has expanded. However, these prevailing views have also promoted critical debates about criminal justice by highlighting the political dimensions of technological development.