Review calls for urgent new laws over use of biometric technology

An impartial authorized assessment has concluded that new guidelines regulating the use of biometric details in the general public and private sector are urgently necessary.

The report, commissioned by The Ada Lovelace Institute and undertaken by Matthew Ryder QC, aimed to highlight the uncertain level of biometric technology regulation supplied by present guidelines this kind of as the EU’s Basic Knowledge Safety Regulation (GDPR).

Between the review’s suggestions are a new statutory framework to set out the use of biometric details by personal and community organisations for the two identification and classification, and the institution of a countrywide Biometrics Ethics Board. This, it states, is essential provided the legal rights-intrusive likely of new technologies this kind of as live facial recognition and gait recognition.

Even further investigation into the non-public sector’s use of biometrics, as perfectly as the sharing of facts concerning non-public and public sector entities, was also highlighted as a subject of relevance.

The critique provides the example of the use of facial recognition technology at the King’s Cross web-site in 2019, which was later uncovered to have included a information sharing arrangement with the Metropolitan Police and British Transportation Law enforcement, to “prevent and detect crime in the neighbourhood”, in accordance to the site’s homeowners.

Recommendations in this space consist of stricter regulation of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) and a total moratorium on all LFR in both of those the general public and non-public sector right until the new framework is in area.

Extra concern was elevated all-around the use of remote monitoring and online video processing to acquire biometric facts in the non-public sector, enabled by the increase of remote doing the job in the course of the pandemic.

Under present-day protections presented by GDPR, biometric data is only categorized as unique class knowledge when it is gathered for ‘the function of uniquely determining a natural person’. The Ada Lovelace Institute, in their policy report supplemental to the assessment, notes that this leaves biometric information used to establish a person’s “gender, race, or emotional state” matter to significantly less stringent legal oversight.

Proposed legislation would protect use of biometric data for identification and classification. It would also require biometric technology earmarked for community use to very first endure a sequence of impact assessments to determine its potential impact on privacy and equality, as effectively as scrutinise the requirement and proportionality of the technology.

Community bodies would then have to refer any these kinds of technology to a newly proposed Biometric Ethics Board, the development of which would provide moral oversight in a community advisory potential. It was also instructed that the advice of the board need to be made publicly accessible, with general public bodies required to publish explanations for any selections produced opposite to this advice within just 14 days of any these choice.

Owning begun in 2020, the critique makes no reference to the proposed Data Reform Invoice, which has been especially highlighted by authorities ministers as stress-free specific constraints imposed by GDPR that they dubbed “red tape and pointless paperwork”. These include aims by the authorities to reduce down on the will need to search for user consent for the processing of facts in specified instances.

As section of the critique, the Ada Lovelace council convened a Citizens’ Biometrics Council, composed of a varied group of 50 members of the general public questioned to discover about and give views on the use of biometric technology in legislation. A common see in their tips was the will need for consent and transparency regarding the use of biometric info.

Some sections of this post are sourced from:
www.itpro.co.uk