A group of civil society groups accused police and the Interior Ministry of bypassing parliament for guidance on the use of technology, while urging the government to ban facial recognition cameras.
Thirty-one organizations, including Amnesty International, Liberty, and Privacy International, have posted open letters claiming guidance to enable police, local councils, and executive agencies to use facial recognition throughout England and Wales.
According to The Daily Telegraph, this guidance was announced by the University of Police last week during a parliamentary recess, with no government or government announcements.
The group’s letter states that guidance came despite the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the use of facial recognition cameras by South Wales Police violated privacy rights and broke equality law as a pilot plan prior to nationwide expansion. ..
“In a democratic society, it is imperative that intrusion technology be subject to effective scrutiny,” the letter said.
“Police and the Home Office have so far completely bypassed Congress on the issue of LFRT (Live Facial Recognition Technology). The hassle of this technology, its long-standing highly controversial use, and its related use. Despite the dangers of doing so, we are unaware of our intention to consider the LFRT plan in Congress. “
The group called on Congress and related stakeholders to completely suspend and ban the use of live facial recognition technology by police and private businesses, which poses significant and irreducible risks to our society. The body.
“We do not believe that LFRT can be safely deployed in public places or for mass surveillance purposes.”
The letter stated that the use of facial recognition technology “represents a major change in the relationship between individuals and the state.”
“The impact comes not only from the perspective of privacy and data protection, but also from the greater ethical issues for democratic societies that appear to allow and tolerate the deployment of such intrusive technologies.” Said it.
“LFRT also poses serious problems for our human rights, such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.”
The group said it was concerned that the LFRT “may be used in a wide range of public gatherings” such as sporting events, music concerts and protests, threatening protected rights.
“In addition, the deployment of this surveillance technology can reflect and exacerbate existing imbalanced police activity against the minority community,” the letter said.
Trevor Martialcia
