Privacy groups report a surge in UK police facial recognition scans of databases secretly stocked with passport photos lacking parliamentary oversight.

Big Brother Watch says the UK government has allowed images from the country's passport and immigration databases to be made available to facial recognition systems, without informing the public or parliament.

The group claims the passport database contains around 58 million headshots of Brits, plus a further 92 million made available from sources such as the immigration database, visa applications, and more.