Legal basis

Privacy Act 1988; Australian Government Agencies Privacy Code

Oversight

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), joint investigation with UK ICO

This trial was run specifically by the Australian Federal Police's Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE), not the AFP generally. The AFP's own account, given in a Senate Estimates brief, states ACCCE personnel ran a limited pilot from November 2019 to January 2020, testing whether Clearview could match side-profile photographs of possible child exploitation victims against frontal reference images; temporary accounts were terminated in March 2020. The Australian Information Commissioner subsequently found the AFP had failed to comply with its privacy obligations, including a requirement to complete a privacy impact assessment before the trial. Separately, and consistent with the free-trial period documented for other Australian police services in this entry, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia police also had access during the same general window.

Source: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Commissioner-initiated investigation determination · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

No national biometric surveillance framework exists in Australia. Western Australia's Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 is the first Australian law directly governing personal information in automated decision-making.

Oversight

State privacy watchdog was not consulted before the trial launched, according to advocacy groups

That Act requires WA Police to show how bias, harm and discrimination risks are managed, and each deployment requires an authorising superintendent to record why the operation is necessary and proportionate. Australia's first police use of live facial recognition to locate persons of interest, running as a trial from 22 June 2026 in Perth and Mandurah. A clearly marked van scans the faces of people it passes and compares them against a watchlist of about 4,000 people: outstanding arrest warrants, reportable offenders, people under lawful exclusion orders, and missing persons. Unmatched faces are pixellated on the operator screen and the biometric data deleted immediately. An officer must review any alert before acting, and WA Police state that an algorithmic match alone cannot justify an arrest. In the first week more than 130,000 faces were scanned, producing 33 alerts and 18 arrests. The oversight arrangements are contested and that contest is part of the record. The state privacy watchdog was reportedly excluded from the process. Academic commentary notes there are no pre-defined success criteria and no independent evaluator, with WA Police both running the trial and compiling its results. The Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia says it was given 20 minutes' notice before launch, and its legal services director has said the trial site locations could only have been chosen by design rather than chance, a characterisation police deny.

Source: ABC News · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

Not detailed in the source reviewed

Oversight

Victorian Law Reform Commission has examined the deployment

Victoria Police uses iFace to search persons of interest against an offender image database. A Victorian Law Reform Commission report recorded 86 Victorian police stations with iFace capture points as of 2020, which is the most recent figure found; this entry should be treated as confirming the system exists and was operational as of that report, not as confirmation of its current 2026 scale.

Source: Victorian Law Reform Commission · last checked 2026-08-18

Legal basis

Not detailed in the source reviewed

Oversight

South Australian Auditor-General, which is the source this entry rests on

The South Australian Auditor-General's own report states SAPOL was already using AI-type tools for facial recognition matched against CCTV and custody photographs, mobile phone detection cameras, and social media monitoring, with further plans for AI-assisted interview transcription and machine learning tools for identifying leads and hidden connections between cases. This entry bundles several related capabilities the Auditor-General reported together rather than treating each as a separate deployment, since the source itself does not give each one separately confirmed operational status.

Source: South Australian Auditor-General · last checked 2026-08-25

Legal basis

NSW Police Force internal policy and guidelines rather than statute

Oversight

NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (Operation Tepito); NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research evaluation

Chimera collated police information sources weighted by perceived reliability and computed a Crime Severity Index score from charges and offending indicators, scoring each offence against the Australian Bureau of Statistics National Offence Index and typically covering the prior six months. A benchmark score limited the candidate list. Intelligence officers reviewed the shortlist alongside offending history and local crime patterns, could add people from local knowledge, documented a justification, and a senior officer approved selection. Those selected were subjected to increased overt and covert police attention. STMP was introduced in 2000, with STMP III and Chimera from November 2020. It was discontinued for children and young people in October 2023 and for adults from December 2023, following the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission's Operation Tepito investigation.

Source: NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, Operation Tepito final report · last checked 2026-08-20