{"id":695,"date":"2021-10-22T10:28:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T08:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greens-efa.eu\/opinions\/?p=695"},"modified":"2021-10-28T17:58:32","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T15:58:32","slug":"facial-recognition-in-european-cities-what-you-should-know-about-biometric-mass-surveillance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greens-efa.eu\/opinions\/facial-recognition-in-european-cities-what-you-should-know-about-biometric-mass-surveillance\/","title":{"rendered":"Facial recognition in European cities – What you should know about biometric mass surveillance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As an effort to promote privacy and human rights in the EU, we at Greens\/EFA got together with a team of international experts to understand where biometric mass surveillance, like facial recognition, is put to use this very moment in different European cities and states.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Keep reading to find out what we learned, and why must take action to ban the use of these technologies now \u2013 before it is too late.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Bye bye privacy – Current practices of biometric mass surveillance in the EU<\/h3>\n<\/div>
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Biometric mass surveillance wrongfully reports large numbers of innocent citizens systematically discriminates against under-represented groups and has a chilling effect on a free and diverse society.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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<\/a>If not regulated, they have the potential to change our societies fundamentally. This is why we must stop them before it\u2019s too late<\/a>. More and more people are standing up against the deployment of these technologies. In the United States, lawmakers have already started to impose bans on the use of some of the most invasive forms of algorithmic decision-making software: namely facial recognition technologies.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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In the European Union, on the other hand, governments are beginning to experiment with systems of facial recognition and other biometric mass surveillance technologies in public spaces. With the upcoming Artificial Intelligence Regulation, the European Union has the chance to safeguard our fundamental rights and to ban biometric surveillance technologies that magnify the discrimination that women, people of colour and other marginalised groups in the European Union already face today.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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What is biometric mass surveillance?<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Biometric mass surveillance is the monitoring, tracking, and otherwise processing of the biometric data of individuals or groups in an indiscriminate or arbitrarily targeted manner. Biometric data includes highly sensitive data about our body or behaviour. When used to scan everyone in public or publicly accessible spaces (a form of mass surveillance) biometric processing violates a wide range of fundamental rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n