they always had been or at least tried, for decades by now, the only thing which had been holding them back was the EU frequently being like "no wtf UK, that is against human rights, EU law, etc."
> Has society really become this dangerous that we must deploy these things?
no, and it also has a long track record of not only marginally improving your crime statistics. And especially stuff like facial recognition vans are most times not used to protect citizens but to create lists for who attended demos and similar. Which is most useful for suppressing/harassing your citizens instead of protecting them.
We have another token legislation from EU forbidding private parties to most anything, and carefully inserting loopholes for authorities and government to do as they please.
True, the restrictions on live facial recognition is a bit more severe for law enforcement than usual.
But: A. It's not something most people here care about a lot. Law enforcement are still allowed to use AI to create a file on every citizen. B. It gives them political points, because now people less-in-the-know will think that they are actually protecting privacy, which is again, not true.