Matt Bellamy: 'F**k the Leicestershire police for scanning your faces without you knowing'

Leicestershire Police have responded to Muse frontman Matt Bellamy's criticism of them using face-scanning technology at Download Festival 2015.

The Devonshire Drones space-rock trio performed an epic headline set at the Donington Park event back in June, during which he attacked the local police for scanning the faces of some 90,000 festival-goers - in a bid to compare them to criminals who attack festivals across Europe

"Fuck the Leicestershire police for scanning your faces without you knowing," said Bellamy, introducing the revolt anthem 'Uprising'.

Watch the incident below

Now, Leicestershire Police's Chief Constable Simon Cole has defended the move in an interview with BBC Radio Leicester.

"For me it's an area where technology has advanced probably quicker than legislation," he said. "The Police and Criminal Evidence Act was written in the 1980s – this kind of technology existed in science fiction films at that point and now it exists in reality. The law needs to change to take account of that."

Liberty's Rachel Robinson disagreed: "We really think that there's a real need for caution here. The police [need] to think about their relationship with their communities and the broader impact that this kind of mass surveillance can have."

Meanwhile, Bellamy recently revealed that Muse would not be performing at next month's Bestival as once believed - but that they would be going out on a Drones UK tour 'soon'.