Tech
Landmark legal challenge against police facial recognition begins | Computer Weekly
A judicial review against the Metropolitan Police’s use of live facial recognition (LFR) will argue the force is unlawfully deploying the technology across London, without effective safeguards or constraints in place to protect people’s human rights from invasive biometric surveillance.
Brought by anti-knife campaigner Shaun Thompson, who was wrongfully identified by the Met’s system and subject to a prolonged stop as a result, and privacy group Big Brother Watch, the challenge will argue there are no meaningful safeguards in place to effectively limit how the Met uses the technology.
In particular, it will argue the Met’s policy on where it can be deployed and who it can be used to target is so permissive and leaves so much discretion to the force that it cannot be considered “in accordance with law”.
“The reason for the ‘who’ requirement is clear,” wrote Thompson and Big Brother Watch in their skeleton argument for the case. “It serves to protect against people being selected for a watchlist for reasons that are arbitrary, discriminatory or without sufficient basis. As to the ‘where’ requirement, the concern is not with the individuals on the watchlist, but the thousands of innocent people who will have their biometric data taken while going about lawful quotidian activities.”
They added that, as with the “who”, similarly constraining officers’ discretion as to “where” LFR can be used inhibits officers from selecting locations for reasons that are arbitrary, discriminatory, or otherwise have an insufficient basis.
“That is a safeguard against individual officers selecting areas arbitrarily or improperly targeting areas where people of certain races or religions disproportionately live or consistently targeting deprived communities in London,” they wrote, adding that if there are insufficient constraints on “where” LFR can be used, it will be impossible for people to travel across London without their biometric data being captured and processed.
“Any public place risks becoming one in which people’s identities are liable to be checked to see if they are of interest to the police,” they continued. “That would be to fundamentally transform public spaces and people’s relationship with the police.”
Rights breaches
Ultimately, Thompson and Big Brother Watch will argue that the Met’s LFR use breaches the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly.
This marks the first legal challenge in Europe brought by someone misidentified by facial recognition technology.
After Thompson was wrongly flagged by the technology when travelling through London Bridge, officers detained him while they asked for identity documents, repeatedly demanded fingerprint scans, and inspected him for scars and tattoos.
The police stop continued for over 20 minutes, during which time Thompson was threatened with arrest, despite providing multiple identity documents showing he had been falsely identified.
Thompson, a 39-year-old Black man, described the police’s use of LFR at the time as “stop and search on steroids”.
In August 2020, the Court of Appeal previously found that South Wales Police (SWP) had been deploying LFR unlawfully, on the grounds there were insufficient constraints on the force’s discretion over where LFR could be used, and who could be placed on a watchlist.
“The possibility of being subjected to a digital identity check by police without our consent almost anywhere, at any time, is a serious infringement on our civil liberties that is transforming London,” said Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo ahead of the case being heard.
“When used as a mass surveillance tool, live facial recognition reverses the presumption of innocence and destroys any notion of privacy in our capital. This legal challenge is a landmark step towards protecting the public against intrusive monitoring.”
Legal arguments
On where police can deploy LFR, the Met’s policy documents state the force can deploy LFR cameras at “crime hotspots”, including “access routes” to those hotspots; for “protective security operations”, meaning at public events or critical national infrastructure; and locations based on officers’ intelligence about “the likely location [of] … sought persons”.
However, according to their skeleton argument, Thompson and Big Brother Watch will say the policy does “not meaningfully constrain the discretion as to where LFR can be located”.
It added that while these use cases are intended to circumscribe where the tech can be used, a third-party analysis conducted by Martin Utley – a professor of operational research at University College London – suggests that, in practice, “they confer far too broad a discretion on individual officers, and permit them to deploy LFR anywhere they choose in the significant majority, if not the vast majority, of public spaces in the Metropolitan Police District at any time”.
The argument also added that while the Met’s LFR policy permits officers to designate areas as “crime hotspots” based on “operational experience as to future criminality”, this is “opaque and entirely subjective”.
Utley specifically found that an estimated 47% of the Met’s policing district is labelled as a “crime hotspot”, and that LFR could be deployed on access routes that cover a further 38%, rendering 85% of London open to LFR deployments.
A separate analysis conducted by the Met found that LFR can be located in around 40% of the Metropolitan Police District, compared with Utley’s 47%.
Highlighting how SWP’s use of the tech was found unlawful due to the broad discretion conferred to officers in that case, the argument claims that, taken all together, the Met’s deployment use cases mean that “most of the city is covered”.
“There are two ways LFR can be deployed,” it said. “It can be used in a targeted way. For example, if the police have reasonable grounds to suspect that particular individuals were going to engage in violence at a football game, they could be placed on a watchlist and LFR used to detect their presence in the vicinity.
“Or LFR can be deployed in a mass and untargeted way, selecting areas where a very large number of people are likely to pass and using a very large watchlist, in the hope that someone on the list will happen to pass by.
“It was precisely such mass and untargeted use that concerned the CA [Court of Appeal] in Bridges [the case against SWP], which discretion it considered had to be constrained.”
Unlike the case against SWP’s LFR use, however, which sought to determine the proportionality of the interferences with a specific person’s individual rights on the two occasions his biometric information was captured by the system, the judicial review seeks to challenge the lawfulness of the technology’s mass use.
“For the purpose of the IAWL [in accordance with law] requirement it is critical if there is mass use of LFR to repeatedly process the biometric data of millions of people with the capacity to transform public spaces,” it said. “When considering what is required in terms of constraints and safeguards to ensure a measure is IAWL, the Court must consider, among other things, the number of people a measure affects, and not a single individual’s rights.”
The Met, on the other hand, will argue that the public are “generally at liberty to avoid the relevant LFR area”, and that as individuals’ “familiarity” with LFR increases, it can be considered less rights-intrusive.
The force will also argue that, because officers’ discretion around LFR deployments is not unconstrained, the case is not an IAWL issue, asserting that “so long as the Court is satisfied there is not unfettered discretion on the constable deciding where to locate LFR, [there] is not a maintainable legality challenge.”
The Met added that because “there are no parts of the Policy that allow unfettered discretion for an officer to add whomever he or she wants to a watchlist or place the LFR camera wherever he or she wishes … there is no maintainable attack on the Policy as lacking the quality of law”.
In essence, the Met claims that questions about the breadth of officers’ discretion relate only to the proportionality of its approach, rather than its overall lawfulness.
Lack of primary legislation
The landmark legal challenge against LFR is being heard just a matter of weeks after the UK government pledged to “ramp up” the police use of facial recognition and biometrics.
While the use of LFR by police – beginning with the Met’s deployment at Notting Hill Carnival in August 2016 – has already ramped up massively in recent years, there has so far been minimal public debate or consultation, with the Home Office claiming for years that there is already “comprehensive” legal framework in place.
However, in December 2025, the Home Office launched a 10-week consultation on the use of LFR by UK police, allowing interested parties and members of the public to share their views on how the controversial technology should be regulated.
The department has said that although a “patchwork” legal framework for police facial recognition exists (including for the increasing use of the retrospective and “operator-initiated” versions of the technology), it does not give police themselves the confidence to “use it at significantly greater scale … nor does it consistently give the public the confidence that it will be used responsibly”.
It added that the current rules governing police LFR use are “complicated and difficult to understand”, and that an ordinary member of the public would be required to read four pieces of legislation, police national guidance documents and a range of detailed legal or data protection documents from individual forces to fully understand the basis for LFR use on their high streets.
There have also been repeated calls from both Parliament and civil society over many years for the police’s use of facial recognition to be regulated.
This includes three separate inquiries by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee into shoplifting, police algorithms and police facial recognition; two of the UK’s former biometrics commissioners, Paul Wiles and Fraser Sampson; an independent legal review by Matthew Ryder QC; the UK’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission; and the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which called for a moratorium on live facial recognition as far back as July 2019.
More recently, the Ada Lovelace Institute published a report in May 2025 that said the UK’s patchwork approach to regulating biometric surveillance technologies is “inadequate”, placing fundamental rights at risk and ultimately undermining public trust.
In August 2025, after being granted permission to intervene in the judicial review of the Met’s LFR use, the UK’s equality watchdog said the force is using the technology unlawfully, citing the need for its deployments to be necessary, proportionate and respectful of human rights.
The war with Iran and ensuing blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane, has spiked oil prices and sent governments scrabbling for their reserves. How high will prices go, and how bad could it get?
On Friday night, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby published a memo to his employees showing that his very fuel-dependent business is prepping for a very long fallout. “Our plans assume oil goes to $175/barrel and doesn’t get back down to $100/barrel until the end of 2027,” he wrote.
Jet fuel accounts for between a quarter and a third of airlines’ operating costs. Prices have doubled from $70 a barrel since the war started four weeks ago, threatening to seriously cut into airlines’ profitability. Kirby said that his airline has a strategy: United will cut some 5 percent of its planned flight schedule during the second and third quarters of this year, with trims coming especially in off-peak periods like red-eyes and less popular travel days: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
“Honestly, I think there’s a good chance it won’t be that bad,” Kirby wrote in the memo, “but … there isn’t much downside for us to prepare for that outcome.”
United’s moves are significant for not only the travel industry but the wider global economy, analysts say. If it all plays out the way Kirby predicts, “this would be incredibly unwelcome news to everyone who is not in the oil refining business,” says Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University’s Eli Broad College of Business.
Airlines might be a particularly notable canary in the economic coal mine because their business leans even more heavily on oil prices, and especially refined oil prices, than most. Air transportation ranks just below asphalt paving as the US industry that spends the greatest share of its non-labor costs on refined petroleum products, Miller has calculated. Kirby’s predictions, while dire, are in line with what others in the commodity market are predicting, Miller says.
“Economically, this energy shock is hitting at the worst time possible,” Miller says. Add its effects to a sluggish job market and a global economy shaken by the US’s erratic tariff regime, and economists start to think about recession. The Iran war and the ensuing energy crisis “have played out longer than many expected it to,” Miller says. Kirby’s memo is an acknowledgment that “Hormuz may not be open for business very quickly.”
The effects of the fuel price spikes are already affecting the travel industry. Last week, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said the company had spent an additional $400 million on fuel. Airlines have reported strong demand in the past weeks, with United’s Kirby noting in his memo that the past 10 weeks had seen the airline take in the most revenue on bookings ever. But it remains to be seen whether lots of people are actually enthusiastic about travel, or flyers spooked about geopolitics and fears of high ticket prices moved early to lock in their plans before oil costs got higher. Isom noted that, if oil prices remain high, “we’re certainly going to be nimble in terms of capacity, to make sure that supply and demand stay in balance.”
How bad it could get for airlines—and its passengers—depends not just on how long oil prices stay elevated, but how long the businesses’ questions about the crisis remain unanswered.
“If we stay in this uncertainty for a long time, this is adding to the complexity,” says Ahmed Abdelghany, who studies airline operations as a professor in Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s College of Business. “The longer it goes, the more problematic to the airlines that remain.”
Merino wool is a super fiber. The best merino wool clothing somehow manages to be comfortable in 95-degree heat, and merino base layers keep you warm well below freezing. Unlike synthetic fibers derived from petroleum, merino wool is natural and renewable.
Merino wool’s versatility means there’s a bewildering array of blends and options to choose from. Here are our favorite merino wool products that we’ve tested by wearing and washing (usually in cold water, and hung to dry, although we do machine dry them just to see what happens) over the course of months and even years in some cases. Once you’re done here, don’t forget to check out the rest of our apparel guides, like the Best Merino Wool T-Shirts, Best Base Layers, Best Puffer Jackets, Best Hoodies, and Best Hiking Boots.
Updated April 2026: We’ve changed out top pick boxers to Wool & Prince, added more hoodies, and the Ibex women’s Goat short sleeve. We also updated prices and links throughout.
Table of Contents
Why Is Merino Wool So Great?
Merino wool is great because you’re stealing a sheep’s ability to keep itself warm or cool based on the temperatures it’s in, a process often referred to as thermoregulation. If you’ve only ever worn the sort of itchy wool sweaters your proverbial grandmother supposedly made, you might wonder what all the fuss is. The answer is that Merino sheep have thinner, softer wool, which has evolved to keep them comfortable across a wide range of temperatures and is comfortable to wear next to your skin. Wool is sustainable, too.
One sheep can produce 4 to 5 pounds of wool per year. That’s because the sheep that make merino wool drink only the purest alpine waters and study the art of comfort under the tutelage of those stuck-up Pashmina goats, who, let’s face it, might know a thing or two about wonderfully pillowy softness. Just kidding. Merino sheep do have that softer wool though, and merino wool is a remarkable fabric that’s become the cornerstone of my wardrobe.
Merino wool comes in different weights, which you will frequently see listed as “200 gsm” or something similar. (The “gsm” refers to grams per square meter, sometimes listed as g/m.) What’s important is the scale and where your garment falls on it. At the low end, you have T-shirts and underwear, which are typically 150 gsm, though we have seen some as low as 120 gsm. Generally, anything below 200 gsm will be a good base layer or T-shirt. From 200 to 300 gsm are your mid-layers, and anything above 300 is a heavier garment.
If you’re more familiar with synthetic ratings like those often used on fleece, know that, in my experience, about 120–160 gsm wool corresponds to 100-weight fleece, 160–200 gsm wool roughly matches 200-weight fleece and 200+ wool is like 300-weight fleece. In every instance, the wool is warmer because it’s better at trapping heat, especially in the wind. (That said, there are reasons to go with fleece at times, like how incredibly lightweight it can be.)
Nuyarn is a merino wool/synthetic hybrid weave, wherein merino wool is wrapped around a nylon core for warmth, lightness, and extra durability. The idea is to get the temperature regulation benefits of merino, but to add some of the longevity of nylon. In my experience, Nuyarn mostly works. It’s our top pick for base layers, though I find it less necessary in more casual garments, where I prefer 100 percent wool.
How to Care for Merino Wool
Most merino products will have care instructions. Most likely it will be to wash cold and lay flat to dry. The latter is important, as hanging wool to dry will stretch it out (because of the water weight). While most merino labels say the garment can be machine washed, my experience has been that hand-washing merino will extend its life. This is particularly true of very lightweight (150 gsm) merino base layers and T-shirts. The exception is Minus33’s Microweight Raglan short sleeve T-shirt, which is machine-washable and dryer-friendly. Having done both to mine for over a year, I can vouch that it does indeed hold up.
I’ve never had a problem storing merino in my closet between wears, but for long-term storage, I recommend you take precautions against moths, which are notorious for eating holes in wool. I have lost merino garments to moths.
If you don’t want to smell like mothballs, there are better solutions. I make sure to wash and thoroughly dry whatever I am storing, then I seal it in a compression bag, like this. Another option is to put your merino garment in a cotton bag or otherwise wrap it in cotton and then put it in a plastic bin. It’s very important to make sure that the garment is completely dry before using any of these storage methods, otherwise your wool will smell musty and moldy. Other options include storing your garment in a cedar chest, which is a good natural deterrent for moths, or use moth traps or lavender sachets, which will repel the moths.
100 Percent Merino vs. Blends
Should you buy 100 percent merino or should you go for a blend? The answer is … it depends. On the garment in question, the use case, and your preferences. Probably the best way to find out is to try several and see what you like. One advantage to blends is that they’re stretchy, which makes them better for active pursuits like hiking, rock climbing, and the like. I like 100 percent merino for heavier mid-layers like hoodies or jackets, but I prefer blends for lighter layers. My experience has been that the closer I get to my skin, the more blend I want, with Nuyarn being my top pick for base layers.
There are also some alpaca blends out there that are also wonderfully soft (I love everything I’ve tried from Paka and Arms of Andes). If you’re one of the rare people who do find merino itchy, you might be allergic to lanolin, which is the skin oil produced by sheep. Alpacas don’t make lanolin, and the fibers are thinner and finer than merino. That makes alpaca warmer and softer, but it’s also more expensive.
Merino vs. Synthetic Fibers
Which is better? The answer again is … it depends (sorry). But usually merino. By synthetics, I generally mean polyester, nylon, polypropylene, rayon, or blends of these and other fabrics—everything but cotton, wool, and linen.
Synthetics generally win for wicking away sweat, which means they tend to feel drier. They also tend to dry faster, so when it comes to things like socks and underwear, even most “merino” options are often more than 50 percent synthetic. Synthetics are just better at handling moisture. How much this matters depends on a host of personal factors. For example, I feel weird and almost clammy in anything synthetic, so I don’t really care how much moisture it wicks away.
The downside to that moisture wicking is that synthetics retain odor. There are some chemical treatments that can help, but I’ve never tried anything synthetic that was as odor-resistant as merino wool.
Another difference is breathability. Synthetics are passable in this department, but it’s where merino really excels. If you’re hot and are hiking up an exposed slope toward an open pass and then dropping down into the cool of a forest, merino is your friend, because the breathability means less sweat to cool you when you get out of the sun. Again, how much this matters depends on your body.
The final factor worth thinking about is durability. In some cases, synthetics will last longer than pure merino, particularly in scenarios where abrasion is a major source of wear. To my mind, this is just another reason to choose a merino blend rather than going all the way to synthetics, but it’s something to think about if you do a lot of off-trail hiking or rock climbing—any activity where your clothes are going to take a beating.
Base Layers
To really see how remarkable merino wool is, start at the bottom, with the clothes next to your skin. Merino really shines as a base layer. It’s warmer for the weight, wicks moisture well, and unlike synthetic fabrics, merino stays stink-free for days of wear. Be sure to read our layering guide for more on how to put it all together and stay comfortable in any weather. We also have a separate guide to the best base layers if you want know all your options, but here are our top merino picks from that guide.
Best Lightweight Base Layer
The Ibex Woolies Pro Tech base layer crew is the best lightweight merino base layer we’ve tested. If you want a hard-wearing shirt, this it it. Woolies are Nuyarn (see above), which is 85 percent merino wool and 15 percent nylon—the merino wool is wrapped around a nylon core, which increases the warmth while being lighter (5 oz for the men’s large) and more durable. This is my top pick for all things technical. It’s what I bring hiking, backpacking, and it’s reviews editor Adrienne So’s pick for running, climbing and other high-aerobic activities when it’s cold. I also love the Woolies Pro Tech Bottoms ($115), which are what I bring backpacking in all but the warmest of weather. There’s also a quarter zip version of the shirt if you prefer.
Aside from comfort and warmth, a bit part of the reason we recommend Woolies is that they last. Ibex is what passes for a heritage company in this space; the company was founded in 1997 and has been cranking out merino garment for a long time. Adrienne’s parents bought her two sets of Ibex base layers in 2001 that she still wears today, in the year of our Lord 2025. Properly cared for, Woolies will keep you comfortable warm for years to come.
Best Heavyweight Base Layer
SmartWool
Merino Classic Long-Sleeve
When I want something a bit warmer than the lightweight Woolies above, I reach for Smartwool’s Classic long sleeve base layer. These may be the most popular merino shirts around, and for good reason: They’re very comfortable, tending to the looser side, feature heavy duty seams that don’t rub, and sit off the shoulder for more comfort when wearing a pack. At 87 percent merino wool (blended with nylon), these are also very durable while remaining lightweight (10.3 oz for a men’s large). This Smartwool shirt, along with the matching pants ($125), are great for chilly winter days.
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Courtesy of Unbound Merino
Unbound Merino
Long-Sleeve Merino Crew
The picks above all have what my wife calls “that sporty look,” which the industry refers to as “technical.” This 100 percent merino shirt from Unbound is the opposite: it just looks like a long sleeve shirt. It’s incredibly soft and while it does pill a bit if you run it through the dryer (don’t), it’s proved itself plenty durable—I’ve been wearing it constantly for over a year now and it still looks like it did when I got it. It’s the long-sleeve, base layer twin to our favorite T-shirt (see below). It’s on the thin side for a base layer, which makes it perfect for those cool weather mornings in the shoulder seasons. It’s versatile too; it can be used as a base layer, but it also works as a T-shirt when it’s not too chilly. Fit runs true to size, and if the one you want is sold out, be patient; Unbound frequently updates its stock.
There are so many! Here’s a few more to consider, but really, go read the base layer guide.
Turtle Fur
Merino Pipe Dream Neck Gaiter
Don’t forget your neck. I live in this Turtle Fur gaiter during the winter and I also use the lighter, superfine version for hiking at elevation in the summer to keep the sun off my neck without resorting to sunscreen. It’s wonderfully soft, not overly tight, and never smells.
Merino Mid Layers
Fleece has its place, but I rarely wear it these days. I prefer merino for my mid layers. It’s better at helping your body regulate its temperature. The one place fleece still wins for me is backpacking. It’s almost always lighter for comparable warmth, at least in mid layers.
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Like the Northern Lights or the McRib, the thickest Ibex wool hoodie appears irregularly and with some fanfare. The Mammoth Hoodie is indeed a big, furry beast of a garment—it’s basically the weight of the classic American Giant hoodie but made of 85 percent wool cut with 15 percent nylon for added warmth and stretch. Ibex says it’s the warmest hoodie they’ve ever made, and in my week of testing, I’ve used it in place of a jacket in mid-30s temps. It has an athletic cut with zippered pockets and thumb holes. I do wear a stocking hat with it in the cold because the scuba hood is meant to fit under a helmet which means it’s too small to provide enough warmth for my large shaved head on its own. —Martin Cizmar
When you have multiple keyboards installed, you can manage them on iOS by opening Settings, then choosing General > Keyboard > Keyboards. To swap between keyboards you’ve installed, tap and hold the globe icon that appears in the lower left corner of all your keyboards.
On Android, you can find your keyboards via System > Keyboard > On-screen keyboard from Settings. To switch between them, tap and hold on the globe icon that appears in the lower right corner whenever a keyboard is on the screen.
The Best Phone Keyboards to Try
Gboard (Android, iOS) is a good option to start with here. It’s preinstalled by default on Pixel phones, but it’s also an excellent keyboard pick for iPhones and Android phones not made by Google. It’s fast and clean, works really well for GIFs, emoji, and stickers, and supports glide typing (where you swipe over letters to form words rather than tapping on each individual letter).
Then there’s SwiftKey (Android, iOS), which is developed by Microsoft. As you might expect, there’s Copilot AI integration built right in, so if you’re stuck for something to say, you can use generative AI to do your writing for you. SwiftKey will also learn your writing style as you go, meaning autocorrections and suggestions get more accurate over time.
Typewise (Android, iOS) demonstrates how third-party keyboards can be a little out of the ordinary. It offers an unusual layout that makes use of hexagonal letter and character tiles, and which Typewise says can seriously speed up your typing speed. There’s also support for multiple languages, AI integrations, and custom gestures.
You may be familiar with Grammarly from the web and the desktop (and from the recent news about its missteps), but the grammar and spell checker service is also available as a keyboard on iOS and as a keyboard extension on Android. As well as checking on your writing, Grammarly puts AI front and center: You can get writing suggestions from a prompt, for example, or change the tone of an existing message with a couple of taps.
If you’re interested in customization options above everything else, then consider Mister Keyboard for iOS. It’s stacked with ways to tweak the look and layout of your iPhone’s keyboard, and to access features like emoji and the clipboard. Either pick one of the preset themes, or take pixel-by-pixel control over the keyboard.
Mister Keyboard isn’t available for Android, but there is theming support in Futo Keyboard for Android. It also includes smart autocorrect and text editing tools, and prides itself on its privacy. The keyboard app doesn’t ask for permission to connect to the internet, so you know that your keystrokes aren’t being sent anywhere.
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