1001 Smart Cities
🇬🇧 London

Emerging Technology Charter & London Privacy Register

🤖 AI-generated summary · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means

London's Emerging Technology Charter (2021) set voluntary principles for facial recognition and sensors in public space — its teeth arrived in 2024, when a public register of DPIAs went live.

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence🏛️ Officialgrades the sourcing — this entry states no impact figure
what does this mean?The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byGreater London Authority (Mayor of London) — Chief Digital Officer for London
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 15 more in London · 📊 Open data guide · 🏛️ Governance projects

Launched at London Tech Week in September 2021, the Mayor of London's Emerging Technology Charter sets voluntary principles — openness, respecting diversity, trustworthy data use and sustainability — for deploying technologies such as facial recognition, sensors and drones in public space. Its concrete deliverable, the London Privacy Register, went into public beta in August 2024 as an open-data catalogue of data protection impact assessments (DPIAs) for GLA-group smart-city projects. Early entries cover the Met Police's live and retrospective facial recognition, London Underground Wi-Fi data collection, the TfL Go app and ULEZ automatic number-plate recognition. The GLA says it plans to extend the register to boroughs and private landowners.

Live 📅 since 2021
🏛️ GovernanceOpen dataDigital governmentCitizen participationPrivacy & personal data

Sources

↗ London Privacy Register — London DatastorePrimary open-data catalogue of DPIAs; the register itself.
↗ GLA — London Privacy Register (City Hall)Official page (fetch 403 from sandbox, but confirmed live via search index).
↗ Cities Today — London creates privacy registry for data-gathering technologyIndependent press; confirms Aug 2024 launch, GLA/Theo Blackwell as operator, beta status.
↗ Launch of London's Emerging Tech Charter — Chief Digital Officer for LondonPrimary; confirms 22 September 2021 Charter launch and the four principles.
↗ Computer Weekly — Mayor launches London Privacy RegisterIndependent press; DPIA contents (facial recognition, ANPR, Wi-Fi, TfL Go).

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇳🇱 Amsterdam Public-Space Sensor Register · Amsterdam Both map where sensors watch public space: Amsterdam's register (2021) logs each device; London's (2024) lists the DPIAs behind them. 🇳🇱 Amsterdam Algorithm Register · Amsterdam Disclose the machinery: Amsterdam registered its algorithms (2020); London's register lists DPIAs for facial recognition and ANPR (2024). 🇬🇧 London Datastore & Data for London Library · London This register of DPIAs lives as an open dataset on the London Datastore — the city's surveillance transparency published as open data.

Explore the wider context

🗺️ Your City's Problem Map Is Really a Map of Who Complains📖 Civic participation platform📖 Digital identity📖 Government super-app
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Emerging Technology Charter & London Privacy Register” — London, United Kingdom. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/london-privacy-register/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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