biometric data
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Initial wins in Italy just two months after the launch of Reclaim Your Face
Last week, the #ReclaimYourFace campaign reached two important milestones at the national level. On Friday April 16th the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) rejected the SARI Real Time facial recognition system acquired by the police saying that the system lacks a legal basis and, as designed, it would implement a form of mass surveillance.
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New AI law proposal calls out harms of biometric mass surveillance, but does not resolve them
On 21 April 2021, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a new law on artificial intelligence. With it, the Commission acknowledged some of the numerous threats biometric mass surveillance poses for our freedoms and dignity. However, despite its seemingly good intentions, the proposed law falls seriously short on our demands and does not in fact impose a ban on most cases of biometric mass surveillance – as urged by EDRi and the Reclaim Your Face coalition.
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Computers are binary, people are not: how AI systems undermine LGBTQ identity
Companies and governments are already using AI systems to make decisions that lead to discrimination. When police or government officials rely on them to determine who they should watch, interrogate, or arrest — or even “predict” who will violate the law in the future — there are serious and sometimes fatal consequences. EDRi's member Access Now explain how AI can automate LGBTQ oppression.
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No faces left to hack: #ReclaimYourFace Now!
We cannot let power-hungry and profit-orientated technologies manipulate our future, take away our dignity and treat us like walking, breathing barcodes. We have the right to exercise our autonomy and self-determination free from abusive practices undermining our agency. The Reclaim Your Face’s ECI empowers Europeans to move and shape the public debate on the use of these AI-powered biometric technologies. The EU has the chance to show that people sit at the center of its values, by taking the lead to ban biometric mass surveillance that endangers our freedoms, democracies and futures.
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The EU should regulate AI on the basis of rights, not risks
EDRi's member Access Now explains why the upcoming legislative proposal on AI should be a rights-based law, like the GDPR. The European Commission must not compromise our rights by substituting a mere risk mitigation exercise by the very actors with a vested interest in rolling out this technology.
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EDRi challenges expansion of police surveillance via Prüm
The Prüm framework permits police forces of EU Member States to exchange DNA files, fingerprints, vehicle data via a decentralised system. The European Commission and the Council are pushing for a “Next Generation Prüm” in which facial images, firearms data, driving licenses, extracts of police records, data about third-country nationals and many additional types of data could be shared via the system.
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Eurodac database repurposed to surveil migrants
Eurodac is the EU database used to store asylum seekers’ and refugees’ data, as well as certain categories of “irregular” migrants. By the end of 2019, the EU stored almost 6 million peoples’ fingerprint sets in the database. Research show how legislative developments transform the Eurodac database into “a powerful tool for mass surveillance”, endangering migrants' fundamental human rights.
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#ReclaimYourFace and help prevent the end of privacy as we know it!
Facial recognition and other biometric surveillance threatens the core of our right to privacy and data protection by surveilling and judging us. This is why across Europe, we’re calling to ban biometric mass surveillance practices. We’re counting on EU citizens to sign our ECI petition, and on everyone to spread the word and make sure that European governments cannot ignore our demand.
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“Anytime and anywhere”: Vaccination, immunity certificates, and the permanent pandemic
The deployment of vaccines, and in particular any “immunity passport” or certificate linked to the vaccination, must respect human rights. EDRi's member Privacy International (PI) reveals some of the broader human rights, ethical and societal implications of vaccination "passports".
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ECI: putting people’s voices before corporate greed
On 17 February 2021, EDRi with a coalition of 40 human rights and social justice groups launched a unique, officially-recognised EU petition, called a “European Citizens’ Initiative” (ECI). Here, we explain why and how this ECI is a powerful tool for our Reclaim Your Face campaign that aims to ban biometric mass surveillance, as well as for our wider European advocacy against harmful uses of artificial intelligence-based technologies.
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Mass facial recognition is the apparatus of police states and must be regulated
Scientists have shown the inherent structural discrimination embedded in biometric systems. Facial analysis algorithms consistently judge black faces to be angrier and more threatening than white faces. We also know that biometric systems are designed with a purportedly “neutral” face and body in mind, which can exclude people with disabilities and anybody that does not conform to an arbitrary norm.
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New ECI calls Europeans to stand together for a future free from harmful biometric mass surveillance
The Reclaim Your Face coalition launches a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) today to ban biometric mass surveillance. The ECI represents the voice of those who oppose a dystopian future and instead want a future in which choices are made by us, not by algorithms. The initiative needs to collect 1 million signatures in at least 7 EU countries during the next year.
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