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Facial recognition technology will be used by police on the streets of Greater Manchester for the first time next week.

And senior officers say that the 'phenomenal' new tool could prove to be a 'step change' in how they search for both wanted criminals, and vulnerable missing people.

In what is being viewed as a coup, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has been chosen as the 'host' force for two new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) technology vans, funded and supplied by the Home Office to be used across the North West.

The vans are kitted-out with cameras which scan the faces of people passing in a fixed location, with specialist software using biometric data to compare them to the faces on a 'watchlist' compiled by the police.

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