British Legislators Want To Ban Live Facial Recognition

Uploaded on 2023-10-17 in GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Law

A UK cross-party group of 38 MPs and 27 peers, backed by 31 rights and race quality groups, has called on UK police and private companies to immediately stop using live facial recognition (LFR) for public surveillance. This comes after the government announced plans for police to access 45 million UK passport photos to help catch criminals in relation to minor crimes such as bicycle thefts and shoplifting.

The use of this controversial technology in Britain has long been criticised by numerous civil liberties groups including Amnesty International and faces a blanket ban in the European Union.

British police have previously deployed live facial recognition at a number of large-scale public events, including the recent coronation of King Charles IlI. Police and private companies should "immediately stop" the use of facial recognition surveillance, says a group of politicians and privacy campaigners.They have raised concerns around human rights, potential for discrimination and "the lack of a democratic mandate".

The former cabinet minister David Davis, the Liberal Democrats leader, Sir Ed Davey, the Green MP Caroline Lucas and the former shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti are among 65 members of the House of Commons and House of Lords to call for a halt to the technology’s use. The joint statement reads: “We hold differing views about live facial recognition surveillance, ranging from serious concerns about its incompatibility with human rights, to the potential for discriminatory impact, the lack of safeguards, the lack of an evidence base, an unproven case of necessity or proportionality, the lack of a sufficient legal basis, the lack of parliamentary consideration, and the lack of a democratic mandate.”

Beyond the ethical arguments against the use of facial recognition, there is an even more concerning aspect of relying on biometric authentication, it's easily tampered with. If it can easily be spoofed, this begs the question as to whether, in its current form, it has any place in our surveillance systems.

Commenting on facial recognition technology expert Nick France, CTO of Sectigo said “People don’t realise how far along AI deep fake technology has come and how democratised the technology is. Unfortunately, anything about your physical appearance that can be measured i.e eyes, face, voice, can easily be replicated... This is everywhere, and so using these as methods for identity is a lousy secret many have access to. There are better and smarter ways to validate and authenticate identity."

The use of live facial recognition technology outside of law enforcement in the retail sector is even more controversial.

Earlier this year, the British Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reviewed the operations of retail crime prevention firm Facewatch, finding the company had breached data protection legislation, but that it was satisfied it had a legitimate purpose for using people’s information for the detection and prevention of crime.

Information Commissioner's Office: National Technology: Techmarketview: Guardian: BBC: Reuters:

Independent: Facewatch: Image: Ron Lach

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