Blueprint joins call to ban biometric mass surveillance
Blueprint is one of 53 digital rights and freedom of expression organisations who are calling for biometric mass surveillance - such as the use of facial recognition technology in public places - to be banned across the EU. A letter to MEPs, organised by the campaign organisation Reclaim Your Face, calls for a ban to be included in the AI Act, which is currently being debated across the EU institutions.
We've said a lot in the past about how digital surveillance increases the risks for journalists and their sources and risks chilling public debate, because the risks of publishing particular stories are just too great. Biometric surveillance heightens those risks and, because it affects the public at large, contributes to a society where anonymity is impossible, creating profound risks to freedom of assembly and the right to equal treatment under the law.
These risks have become only too apparent in certain jurisdictions and others have already taken measures to limit governments' use of the technology. As the letter points out:
These harms are not hypothetical. Uyghur Muslims have been systematically persecuted by the Chinese government through the use of facial recognition. Pro-democracy protesters and political opponents have been suppressed or targeted in Russia, Serbia and Hong Kong through the use – and in some cases, even just the fear of the use of – RBI in publicly-accessible spaces. And many people have been wrongfully and traumatically arrested around the world.
In response to the ever-increasing proliferation of these uses and their harms, people are pushing back and calling for prohibitions. More than 24 US states have taken steps against facial recognition or other forms of biometric mass surveillance. In South America, two recent rulings in São Paulo and Buenos Aires have ordered the suspension of facial recognition systems.
Some of the world’s biggest providers of biometric surveillance systems – Microsoft, Amazon and IBM – have even adopted self-imposed moratoriums due to the major risks and harms that they know their systems perpetuate; and Facebook has deleted its mass facial image database.
Regulations limiting this kind of surveillance have already either been passed or are under debate in Italy, Germany, Portugal and Belgium.