The European Commission in its White Paper on Artificial Intelligence recommends carrying out a democratic debate that guarantees proportionality in the use of this technology before its implementation in public spaces.
In the US, the decision by IBM, Amazon or Microsoft to suspend their investment in R&D for these facial recognition systems is an unequivocal message of this need for prior evaluation . A decision that, without a doubt, has been challenged by the emergence of problems of racial discrimination in the United States derived from the case of George Floyd’s police brutality.
In Spain, the alleged investigation of Mercadona by the Spanish Data Protection Agency is also a clear call for caution when using this technology. It is also a symptom of this need, the controversy that arose around the Barcelona City Council, not only because of the use of facial recognition systems, which was not their intention, but because of the mere fact of acquiring video surveillance cameras that incorporated this functionality.
The foregoing shows that we are not yet ready to use this technology in public spaces. Before we have to clear many doubts. This has to be done in a space for democratic debate and not exclusively within private corporations because there are fundamental rights at stake.
Specifically, it is convenient to define the legal basis for its implementation, the permitted purposes or the databases that are used. All this applying the criterion of proportionality.
There is broad consensus that the legal basis for their implementation in public places must be reinforced by the essential public interest. Let us remember that these systems treat biometric data that have a special protection because they are considered sensitive data, as set out in the General Data Protection Regulation.
In Spain, this essential public interest should be regulated by a norm with the rank of law. This has been recalled by the Spanish Data Protection Agency in its Report No. 010308/2019, concluding that private security companies cannot make use of this technology based on an essential public interest as long as there is no rule with the force of law so enable it.
The permitted purposes will surely generate a greater diversity of opinion because, depending on them, we will be a more or less guarded society . The convenience of its use in accesses to critical infrastructures may be evident because they provide essential services that must be safeguarded. However, it is not so obvious if we talk about a generalized installation in the public transport network.
Finally, we must not forget that these systems generally rely on databases to function. How will these databases be generated? Whose will they be? Where will they get the data to work? Maybe someone is now remembering that selfie sent to an ‘innocent’ app to get a nice image of him with a few years too much. It is not about supercharging conspiracy theories, but rather warning of the need to be aware of the importance of privacy.
In short, as I hope the reader has verified, as this was precisely the objective of this article, there are many issues that must be discussed before allowing the use of this technology, especially in public spaces. Let’s not put this debate aside because, as citizens of the world, we are risking part of our rights and freedoms.
Sergio de Juan-Creix. Partner of the croma law firm and professor-collaborator of the UOC.
