European privacy regulators have issued new guidelines for the use of facial recognition by police and judicial authorities. Facial recognition may only be used when it is necessary and proportionate, the regulators say. And they repeat their plea for a ban on facial recognition in a number of specific cases.
The new guidelines for facial recognition come from the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the collaborative body in which the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens Authority consults with fellow European regulators.
The guidelines are intended for European and national legislators and for police and justice itself. They provide guidance for the use of facial recognition.
The EDPB believes that police and judicial authorities should use facial recognition only in very exceptional cases. And the EDPB reiterates its earlier plea to ban facial recognition and similar techniques altogether in some cases:
remote facial recognition of persons in public spaces;
facial recognition systems that classify people into groups based on ethnicity, gender, sexuality or political affiliation;
facial recognition or similar technologies that recognize emotions;
use of a database that is filled with people's photos by extracting them in large quantities from the Internet(scraping).
The guidelines for facial recognition are not yet final. In fact, there is a 6-week public consultation period first.
Anyone (both organizations and individuals) can submit a views on the guidelines. This can be done until June 27, 2022.
