The spread of facial recognition technology across the UK is being hailed by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley as a “game-changing” tool, even as critics warn it risks normalizing mass surveillance. Live Facial Recognition (LFR) systems, which scan faces in public and compare them against watchlists, have already led to more than 700 arrests this year, according to the Met. Rowley pointed to deployments such as at the Notting Hill Carnival, where 61 arrests were made, as evidence of its effectiveness. Alongside LFR, the commissioner is pushing for wider use of drones and artificial intelligence in policing, from searching for missing people to analyzing vast amounts of CCTV footage far more quickly than human officers could.

Yet these advances are stirring concern over the erosion of privacy and civil liberties. Expansions in biometric monitoring and AI-driven policing risk embedding constant surveillance into daily life, where even innocent citizens can be swept into a digital dragnet. Shaun Thompson’s wrongful identification by facial recognition technology is one example campaigners cite as proof of its dangers. False matches, limited safeguards, and creeping normalization of intrusive monitoring raise pressing questions: how long before efficiency and safety arguments outweigh fundamental freedoms, leaving the public under perpetual watch in what some describe as a digital police state?

The rise of such technologies is not coincidental. Scripture speaks of a coming system where control will extend to the very movement and transactions of people, a world where no one can “buy or sell” without submission to its dictates (Revelation 13:16-17). What we see today in the embrace of facial recognition, drones, and AI policing is the scaffolding of such a system. These measures are framed as protection, but they condition society to accept constant monitoring and control. For Watchers and Warriors, this is a reminder to remain discerning: the world is being prepared for a day when earthly authorities will demand ultimate allegiance, but God’s Word assures us that His sovereignty stands above every system of man.