EU Bans Live Face Recognition Across the 27-Member Bloc.
EU Bans Live Face Recognition – The European Parliament has voted to ban uses of live facial recognition, though the future of the technology for law enforcement and national security purposes remains under discussion.
The European Parliament’s draft law known as the AI Act, will put restrictions on AI uses that it considers to be a risk to society. As well as live face recognition being banned, makers of AI systems would be required to disclose information about data they use to create programs and biometric scraping from social media sources would also be banned. Makers of AI technology would also have to conduct risk assessments before putting their technology into everyday use.
While the AI Act makes dispensation for serious public surveillance applications, these seem to be restricted to certain types of investigations by certain types of organisations for set periods of time with judicial oversight. There’s not mention in act of face recognition-based access control solutions in private applications.
EU Bans Live Face Recognition AI Act states:
“The use of AI systems for real-time remote biometric identification of natural persons in publicly accessible spaces for the purpose of law enforcement is considered particularly intrusive in the rights and freedoms of the concerned persons, to the extent that it may affect the private life of a large part of the population, evoke a feeling of constant surveillance and indirectly dissuade the exercise of the freedom of assembly and other fundamental rights. In addition, the immediacy of the impact and the limited opportunities for further checks or corrections in relation to the use of such systems operating in real-time carry heightened risks for the rights and freedoms of the persons that are concerned by law enforcement activities.
The use of those systems for the purpose of law enforcement should therefore be prohibited, except in three exhaustively listed and narrowly defined situations, where the use is strictly necessary to achieve a substantial public interest, the importance of which outweighs the risks. Those situations involve the search for potential victims of crime, including missing children; certain threats to the life or physical safety of natural persons or of a terrorist attack; and the detection, localisation, identification or prosecution of perpetrators or suspects of the criminal offences referred to in Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA38 if those criminal offences are punishable in the Member State concerned by a custodial sentence or a detention order for a maximum period of at least 3 years and as they are defined in the law of that Member State.
EU Bans Live Face Recognition
In addition, the use of real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for the purpose of law enforcement should be subject to appropriate limits in time and space, having regard in to the evidence or indications regarding the threats, the victims or perpetrator. The reference database of persons should be appropriate for each use case in each of the 3 situations mentioned above. Each use of a ‘real-time’ remote biometric identification system in publicly accessible spaces for the purpose of law enforcement should be subject to an express and specific authorisation by a judicial authority or by an independent administrative authority of a Member State.
EU Bans Live Face Recognition
EU Bans Live Face Recognition-Such authorisation should in principle be obtained prior to the use, except in duly justified situations of urgency, that is, situations where the need to use the systems in question is such as to make it effectively and objectively impossible to obtain an authorisation before commencing the use. In such situations of urgency, the use should be restricted to the absolute minimum necessary and be subject to appropriate safeguards and conditions, as determined in national law and specified in the context of each individual urgent use case by the law enforcement authority itself. In addition, the law enforcement authority should in such situations seek to obtain an authorisation as soon as possible, whilst providing the reasons for not having been able to request it earlier.”
Francine Bennett, acting director of the Ada Lovelace Institute in London that pushes for new AI laws, said the EU proposal was a landmark.
“Fast-moving and rapidly re-purposable technology is of course hard to regulate, when not even the companies building the technology are completely clear on how things will play out,” Bennett said. “But it would definitely be worse for us all to continue operating with no adequate regulation at all.”
A risk-based approach would also be used to govern AI systems used to operate critical infrastructure like water or energy, in the legal system, and when determining access to public services and government benefits.
EU Bans Live Face Recognition-A final version of the law will be negotiated between the European Parliament, European Commission and the Council of the European Union, with a final agreement expected by the end of 2023.
You can read the AI Act in full here or read more SEN news here.
“EU Bans Live Face Recognition Across the 27-Member Bloc.”
