EU police authorities intend to create a network of national databases for face recognition which will cover each member state, according to the internal documents collected and he published the Intercept.
Η έκθεση από τις εθνικές αστυνομικές αρχές των 10 κρατών μελών της ΕΕ, υπό την ηγεσία της Αυστρίας, ζητάει νέα νομοθεσία της ΕΕ που θα επιτρέπει τη δημιουργία μιας διασυνδεδεμένης βάσης δεδομένων “το συντομότερο δυνατό”. Το έγγραφο κυκλοφόρησε μεταξύ αξιωματούχων της ΕΕ τον περασμένο Νοέμβριο. Η Intercept αναφέρει ότι οι προπαρασκευαστικές εργασίες για τη νομοθεσία βρίσκονται ήδη σε development.
The report was prepared in the context of the discussions on the addition of face images to its competence Prüm Convention, which currently allows Member States to exchange DNA data, fingerprints and vehicle registration data.
Calls for Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, to play a major role in sharing biometric data with countries except of the EU, thus raising concerns that the system could also be linked to facial recognition databases in the US.
The United States has been pushing for greater access to EU data since 2004, when the US Embassy in Brussels called for "a relationship that allows us to join forces with EU members in the fight against crime and terrorism through extensive exchanges of all forms of data, including personal data. "
The US already requires exchange countries to adopt data agreements that allow their services to have full access to fingerprint and DNA databases.
Edin Omanovic, team manager Privacy International, told The Intercept that there is a high risk that the system could be used for illegal "politically motivated surveillance".
EU Commissioners have publicly spoken out against the use of face recognition, but recent reports suggest the EU is taking a different approach under the table.
The EU seems to be abandoning its plan to impose a moratorium on the use of face recognition and made almost no mention of the technology in a white paper published on AI last week.
The report published by the Intercept shows that the EU has already paid the consultancy Deloitte 700.000 ευρώ για να διερευνήσει πιθανές αλλαγές στο σύστημα Prüm. Έχουν καταβληθεί επιπλέον 500.000 ευρώ σε μια κοινοπραξία δημόσιων οργανισμών της ΕΕ για να χαρτογραφήσουν τις υπάρχουσες χρήσεις της αναγνώρισης του προσώπου σε ποινικές έρευνες με στόχο να προχωρήσουν “προς μια πιθανή ανταλλαγή δεδομένων προσώπου”, σύμφωνα με την δημοσίευση της Intercept.
A separate internal EU report on license data exchange driving under Prüm states that "a network of interconnected national registers can be considered as a virtual European register".
The police report announcing the possibility of using interconnected face-recognition databases to identify unknown suspects may sound tempting to the authorities, but the dangers to privacy with such a system are far-reaching, especially considering that to be used in other ways.
