HOMELAND SECURITY Face-off between surveillance and privacy David Horsburgh CPP PSP PCI, Managing Director at Security Risk Management, explores the legal and ethical issues around the use of facial recognition – a technology New Zealand still appears to be making its mind up about.
Live street surveillance systems have traditionally identified events in real time that require intervention or have been used as a post-event investigation tool. In contrast, live facial recognition technology targets the individual comparing people against a database of faces – a watchlist. This key point of difference is a precipitator to increasing international opposition to the technology. In May 2019, the City of San Francisco became the first US city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by local government agencies. In October 2019, the city of Berkeley followed suit, and it is expected that a number of other cities in the US will ban the technology. In May 2019 during live facial recognition trials by the UK Metropolitan Police a man was charged
David Horsburgh CPP PSP PCI, Managing Director at Security Risk Management
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with disorderly behaviour as he walked past a police van that was equipped with facial recognition cameras – because he hid his face. In August 2019, a Swedish school was fined 20,000 euros by the Swedish Data Protection Authority for using facial recognition to check pupil attendance at the school. My research on the topic focuses on two key questions: • Does the state agency use of facial recognition breach the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBoRA) and the Privacy Act 1993? • Does the private sector use of live facial recognition technology breach the Privacy Act?
Fischer and Green (1998) define security as: a stable, relatively predictable environment in which an individual or group may pursue its ends without disruption or harm and without fear of disturbance or injury. I argue that the Fischer and Green definition needs to be viewed from a broad perspective. Does, for example, the definition include the protection of human rights including the right to privacy, freedom of expression, association and movement, and freedom from discrimination? Interpretations of ‘security’ are influenced by our individual roles within society. As a police officer I Line of Defence
