cover image: Big Brother Watch submission to the Justice and Home Affairs

Big Brother Watch submission to the Justice and Home Affairs

18 Sep 2024

Data protection and human rights laws set a high bar for the processing of such sensitive data in order to protect the privacy and security of everyone in the UK. [...] We have received numerous reports of members of the public being flagged on these systems, approached by shop staff and accused of criminal activity and we expect that the aforementioned high-profile case and legal action we supported is only the tip of the iceberg. [...] In one individual’s case we are supporting, neither the retailer nor Facewatch can provide any evidence of the alleged theft that provides the basis of their inclusion on a watchlist, and the individual strongly denies having ever stolen anything – yet the individual remains technologically blacklisted from major high street stores via live facial recognition and treated as guilty, and has no way. [...] In recent years, parliamentarians across parties in Westminster6 and rights and equalities groups and technology experts across the globe have called for a stop to the use of this technology.7 The only detailed inquiry into the use of live 2 14/; . [...] Within this context we urge the committee to refrain from in any way endorsing the use or expansion of live facial recognition surveillance in the retail sector, and at the very least to take further evidence on its legal and rights implications.
Pages
5
Published in
United Kingdom

Table of Contents