On Friday 5 August the Home Office announced it is scrapping the Police Registration scheme.
The Police Registration Scheme required some nationals of 44 countries to physically register at local police stations on arrival, or when they moved address. 
We’re glad this racist scheme is being abolished – but sadly this move reflects the worrying, ever-expanding digitisation of the Hostile Environment – and feels like one step forward, two steps back.
This scheme is only being scrapped as police have access to Home Office data already. We will still see police working hand in hand with the Home Office to surveil, target and criminalise black and brown communities. It’s likely they’ll use the same racist matrixes as before.
The digitisation of the Hostile Environment is a major concern, as the Home Office rolls back our rights to privacy. Recently it announced plans to introduce monitoring through facial recognition watches, which will require people to scan their fac…