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Privacy watchdog flag recognition te
acial recognition technology brings benefits that can make aspects of our lives easier, more efficient and more secure. The technology allows us to unlock our mobile phones, set up a bank account online, or go through passport control. But when the technology and its algorithms are used to scan people’s faces in real time and in more public contexts, the risks to people’s privacy increases. I am deeply concerned about the potential for live facial recognition (LFR) technology to be used inappropriately, excessively or even recklessly. When sensitive personal data is collected on a mass scale without people’s knowledge, choice or control, the impacts could be significant. We should be able to take our children to a leisure complex, visit a shopping centre or tour a city to see the sights without having our biometric data collected and analysed with every step we take. Unlike CCTV, LFR and its algorithms can automatically identify who you are and infer sensitive details about you. It can be used to instantly profile you to serve up personalised adverts or match your image against known shoplifters as you do your weekly grocery shop. In future, there’s the potential to overlay CCTV cameras with LFR, and even to combine it with social media data or other “big data” systems – LFR is supercharged CCTV. It is not my role to endorse or ban a technology but, while this technology is developing and not widely deployed, we have an opportunity to ensure it does not expand without due regard for data protection. My full opinion piece is accessible here. Data protection and people’s privacy must be at the heart of any decisions to deploy LFR and the law sets a high bar to
18 I SLRMAG.CO.UK / ISSUE XX / WEDNESDAY XXXX 2021
UK privacy watchdog, the ICO, has highlighted its concerns over t
By Elizabeth Denham, U
justify the use of LFR and its algorithms in places where we shop, socialise or gather. The opinion piece is rooted in law and informed in part by six ICO investigations into the use, testing or planned deployment of LFR systems, as well as our assessment of other proposals that organisations have sent to us. Uses we’ve seen included addressing public safety concerns and creating biometric profiles to target people with personalised advertising.
“In future, there’s the potential to o and even to combine it with social m – LFR is superc It is telling that none of the organisations involved in our completed investigations were able to fully justify the processing and, of those systems that went live, none of them were fully compliant with the requirements of data protection law. All of the organisations chose to stop, or not proceed with, the use of LFR.
