Do no harm? How the case of Afghanistan sheds light on the dark practice of biometric intervention
In August 2021, as US military forces exited Afghanistan, the Taliban seized facial recognition systems, highlighting just how a failure to protect people’s privacy can tangibly threaten their physical safety and human rights. Far from being good tools which fell into the wrong hands, the very existence of these systems is part of broader structures of data extraction and exploitation spanning continents and centuries, with a history wrapped up in imperialism, colonialism and control.
Filter resources
-
Do no harm? How the case of Afghanistan sheds light on the dark practice of biometric intervention
In August 2021, as US military forces exited Afghanistan, the Taliban seized facial recognition systems, highlighting just how a failure to protect people’s privacy can tangibly threaten their physical safety and human rights. Far from being good tools which fell into the wrong hands, the very existence of these systems is part of broader structures of data extraction and exploitation spanning continents and centuries, with a history wrapped up in imperialism, colonialism and control.
Read more
-
Platform Regulation: Key takeways from Haugen’s hearing
On 8 November 2021, Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, participated in a hearing of the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO). While her testimony brought extremely important insights into Facebook’s opaque operations, it also showed that Haugen’s thinking of what the digital world in Europe should look like is influenced by her expertise in data science rather than public policy, as well as by her professional experience working with Silicon Valley’s centralised mega-platforms.
Read more
-
AI Regulation: The EU should not give in to the surveillance industry
Although it claims to protect our liberties, the recent European Commission’s legislative proposal on artificial intelligence (AI) promotes the accelerated development of all aspects of AI, in particular for security purposes.
Read more
-
New Belgian data retention law: a European blueprint?
On 21 April 2021, the Belgian Constitutional Court canceled the country’s data retention law, which has allowed every Belgian’s telecom, location and internet metadata to be retained for 12 months, for its potential use in criminal investigations. The Belgian Constitutional Court followed the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) judgment released a few months earlier, which declared that practice of general and indiscriminate retention of personal data illegal (for the third time).
Read more
-
Big brother at the Prague airport. The state refuses to explain how the biometric camera system works
When Václav Mach, collaborator of the Czech digital-legal organization, an EDRi member, Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) and law student at the University of Olomouc, asked the state for more detailed information on the use of smart biometric cameras at Prague's Václav Havel Airport, he obtained just general phrases. "They kept secret what they could. Their non-transparency doesn’t add to their credibility,“ he says in an interview with HlídacíPes.org. The article below is a summary of the more extensive interview, translated from Czech into English by EDRi member IuRe.
Read more
-
EDRi urges Portugal government to oppose proposed video surveillance law
EDRi member and Reclaim Your Face lead organisation D3 (Defesa Dos Direitos Digitais) are raising awareness of how the Portuguese government’s new proposed video surveillance and facial recognition law – which Ministers are trying to rush through the Parliament - amounts to illiberal biometric mass surveillance. It also endangers the very foundations of democracy on which the Republic of Portugal rests.
Read more
-
Artificial intelligence – a tool of austerity
This week Human Rights Watch published a much-needed comment on the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Regulation. As governments increasingly resort to AI systems to administer social security and public services more broadly, there is an ever-greater need to analyse the impact on fundamental rights and the broader public interest.
Read more
-
Human Rights Groups Submit Complaint to European Ombudsman Calling for Investigation into EU Surveillance Aid
Privacy International (PI), together with 5 other human rights groups, has submitted a complaint to the European Ombudsman calling for an investigation into EU surveillance aid to non-EU countries.
Read more
-
MEPs poised to vote blank cheque for Europol using AI tools
This week, MEPs recognised the dangers of certain uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in criminal justice. A strong majority rallied around the landmark AI in criminal matters report by the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee, which opposes AI that 'predicts' criminal behaviour and calls for a ban on biometric surveillance.
Read more
-
Digital Services Act: The EDRi guide to 2,297 amendment proposals
Various committees in the European Parliament have tabled such a large number of amendments for the Digital Services Act (DSA) that today, EDRi publishes a guide to support Members of the European Parliament in navigating those that would help create a successful, open, and rights-respecting European digital sphere.
Read more
-
The EU Parliament Took a Stance Against AI Mass Surveillance: What are the Global Implications?
The European Parliament's resolution on artificial intelligence in criminal law and its use by the police presents an opportunity for the EU to reconsider its role in the development of such tools, their sale, or use as part of its counter-terrorism and anti-immigration policies abroad.
Read more
-
Bugs in our pockets?
Now, in Bugs in our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning, the authors take a long hard look at the options for mass surveillance via software embedded in people’s devices, as opposed to the current practice of monitoring our communications. Client-side scanning, as the agencies’ new wet dream is called, has a range of possible missions. While Apple and the FBI talked about finding still images of sex abuse, the EU was talking last year about videos and text too, and of targeting terrorism once the argument had been won on child protection.
Read more