What leads a man to take a police force to the High Court?
Father-of-two Ed Bridges decided to contact civil rights group Liberty after twice being caught on camera by South Wales Police’s automatic facial recognition (AFR) van.
“I didn’t wake up one morning and think, you know what I really want to take my local police force to court,” he said.
“It wasn’t the case that I had planned to get particularly involved in, but it developed organically.”
On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal ruled the use of automatic facial recognition (AFR) technology by South Wales Police was unlawful.
Mr Bridges, a former Liberal Democrat councillor for Gabalfa in Cardiff says his image was first captured while he was on his lunch break in Cardiff city centre in 2017.
But it was after it happened for a second time, a few months later while he was on a peaceful protest at an arms’ fayre at Cardiff International Arena, that he decided to take action.
“On that occasion the facial recognition van was parked across the street from us,” he said.