A group of 51 organizations has written an open letter to European commissioners calling for the ban of all deployments of facial recognition tools that can snoop on citizens.
A group of 51 digital rights organizations has called on the European Commission to impose a complete ban on the use of facial recognition technologies for mass surveillance – with no exceptions allowed. Comprising activist groups from across the continent, such as Big Brother Watch UK, AlgorithmWatch and the European Digital Society, the call was chaperoned by advocacy network the European Digital Rights (EDRi) in the form of an open letter to the European commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders. It comes just weeks before the Commission releases much-awaited new rules on the ethical use of artificial intelligence on the continent on 21 April. The letter urges the Commissioner to support enhanced protection for fundamental human rights in the upcoming laws, in particular in relation to facial recognition and other biometric technologies, when these tools are used in public spaces to carry out mass surveillance. SEE: Security Awareness and Training policy (TechRepublic Premium) According to the coalition, there are no examples where the use of facial recognition for the purpose of mass surveillance can justify the harm that it might cause to individuals’ rights, such as the right to privacy, to data protection, to non-discrimination or to free expression. It is often defended that the technology is a reasonable tool to deploy in some circumstances, such as to keep an eye on the public in the context of law enforcement, but the signatories to the letter argue that a blanket ban should instead be imposed on all potential use cases. «Wherever a biometric technology entails mass surveillance, we call for a ban on all uses and applications without exception,» Ella Jakubowska, policy and campaigns officer at EDRi, tells ZDNet. «We think that any use that is indiscriminately or arbitrarily targeting people in a public space is always, and without question, going to infringe on fundamental rights. It’s never going to meet the threshold of necessity and proportionality.» Based on evidence from within and beyond the EU, in effect, EDRi has concluded that the unfettered development of biometric technologies to snoop on citizens has severe consequences for human rights.
