The purposes that triggered the introduction of facial recognition may seem uncontroversial at a first sight: it seems unobjectionable to use it to verify a person’s identity against a presented facial image, such as at national borders including in the EU. There is no consensus in society about the ethics of facial recognition, and doubts are growing as to its compliance with the law as well as its ethical sustainability over the long term. In the general absence of specific regulation so far, private companies and public bodies in both democracies and authoritarian states have been adopting this technology for a variety of uses. In China it is used for airport check-in, for monitoring the attentiveness of pupils at school and even for dispensing paper in public latrines. It is used for ‘tagging’ people on social media platforms and to unlock smart phones. It is undeniable that facial recognition, the biometric application used to identify or verify a person’s identity, has become increasingly present in many aspects of daily life. It seems to represent the fight of citizens for the right to be shapeless and anonymous among the crowd, including when exercising the right to protest, versus surveillance by the state authorities. This is the evocative and enigmatic phrase of the current mask-wearing protestors in Hong-Kong. EDPS Brochure: Shaping a Safer Digital Future.
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