BiometricMassSurveillance
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Pre-travel controls: Digitalising travel documents
We are responding to a public consultation on the European Commissions’ digitalising travel documents proposal. This proposal promises convenience in travel but could pave the way for biometric mass surveillance and automated discrimination.
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EU AI Act: Deal reached, but too soon to celebrate
On 8 December 2023, following over 36 hours of negotiations, EU lawmakers finally cinched a deal on the Artificial Intelligence Act. However, whilst some fundamental rights protections have been won, the overall Act has not lived up to its potential to put people and their rights front and center.
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Remote biometric identification: a technical & legal guide
Lawmakers are more aware than ever of the risks posed by automated surveillance systems which track our faces, bodies and movements across time and place. In the EU's AI Act, facial and other biometric systems which can identify people at scale are referred to as 'Remote Biometric Identification', or RBI. But what exactly is RBI, and how can you tell the difference between an acceptable and unacceptable use of a biometric system?
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Reclaim Your Face movement gathered in Brussels
Between 6 and 9 November 2022, more than 20 activists from across Europe gathered in Brussels to celebrate the successes of the Reclaim You Face movement. We got to meet each other in real life after months of online organising, reflected on our wide range off decentralised actions, and learned from each other how to couple grassroots organising with EU advocacy aimed at specific events and EU institutions. Read on to see what we did.
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Italian DPA fines Clearview AI for illegally monitoring and processing biometric data of Italian citizens
On 9 March 2022, the Italian Data Protection Authority fined the US-based facial recognition company Clearview AI EUR 20 million after finding that the company monitored and processed biometric data of individuals on Italian territory without a legal basis. The fine is the highest expected according to the General Data Protection Regulation, and it was motivated by a complaint sent by the Hermes Centre in May 2021 in a joint action with EDRi members Privacy International, noyb, and Homo Digitalis—in addition to complaints sent by some individuals and to a series of investigations launched in the wake of the 2020 revelations of Clearview AI business practices.
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Celebrating a strong European Parliament stance on AI in law enforcement
On 5 October, following a significant push from across civil society, the European Parliament voted to adopt an important new report on Artificial intelligence in criminal law and its use by the police and judicial authorities in criminal matters by a promising majority of 377 votes in favour, to 248 against. This followed a tense vote earlier as a majority of MEPs opposed all four attempts from the European People's Party (EPP) to remove key fundamental rights provisions from the report.
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Booklet: If AI is the problem, is debiasing the solution?
The development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in all areas of public life have raised many concerns about the harmful consequences on society, in particular the impact on marginalised communities. EDRi's latest report "Beyond Debiasing: Regulating AI and its Inequalities", authored by Agathe Balayn and Dr. Seda Gürses,* argues that policymakers must tackle the root causes of the power imbalances caused by the pervasive use of AI systems. In promoting technical ‘debiasing’ as the main solution to AI driven structural inequality, we risk vastly underestimating the scale of the social, economic and political problems AI systems can inflict.
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