The European Parliament Tuesday called a ban on using facial recognition for law-enforcement purposes – ducking center-right MEPs’ efforts to torpedo the ban of the intrusive technology in public spaces.
The call, formally adopted on Tuesday (5 October), comes after repeated warnings from EU privacy watchdogs, the UN, and several NGOs, who agree that the risks linked to the use of AI- technologies in public spaces are aggravated in the field of law enforcement.
It means the EU parliament now has for the first time an official position advocating for a ban on biometric mass surveillance, which sends a strong signal for negotiations of the first-ever EU rules on AI systems.
The text the MEPs approved calls on the European Commission to implement, through legislative and non-legislative means “a ban on any processing of biometric data, including facial images, for law enforcement purposes that leads to mass surveillance in publicly accessible spaces”.
German Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer welcomed the vote as “a historic breakthrough to prevent a China-style dystopian future of biometric mass surveillance in Europe”.
“AI is not dangerous only when used by autocratic governments, where the technology flows its flows no matter who uses or for what purposes. The good intentions do not justify the means,” said the lead MEP Vitanov Petar from the center-left Socialist and Democrats, during a debate on the file on Monday.
Liberal MEP Karen Melchior, for her part, argued that predictive profiling, risk assessment of AI, and automated decision-making systems were “as dangerous for our democracy as nuclear bombs are for living creatures”.
But echoing the concerns of the EU Commission, Belgian MEP Tom Vandenkendelaere, from the center-right European People’s Party, said that “law enforcement authorities must be able to use the full potential of AI to fight criminals faster, more efficiently and in a more targeted place”.
(With inputs from agencies)
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