EU Data Watchdogs Demand Ban on Public Facial Recognition AI
The EDPB and EDPS urge a complete ban on AI systems that automatically recognize human features in publicly accessible spaces. They also call for prohibitions on emotion inference and social scoring in their joint opinion on the EU's proposed AI regulation.
European data protection authorities issue a joint opinion urging a general ban on AI for automated recognition of human features in publicly accessible spaces. The European Data Protection Board and the European Data Protection Supervisor state that remote biometric identification in public areas poses extremely high risks to privacy and fundamental rights. This sweeping call covers the recognition of faces, gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes, and other biometric or behavioral signals in any context.
Beyond public biometric tracking, the watchdogs recommend prohibiting AI systems that categorize individuals based on ethnicity, gender, political or sexual orientation, and other discriminatory grounds. They also firmly oppose using AI to infer human emotions, allowing exceptions only for very specific health purposes, and demand a total prohibition on any type of social scoring. These strict recommendations aim to protect individuals from invasive surveillance and algorithmic discrimination as the EU shapes its artificial intelligence laws.
The joint opinion strongly welcomes the European Commission's overall effort to regulate AI but highlights significant concerns about the current draft proposal. The authorities emphasize that existing data protection legislation fully applies to any AI processing personal data and insist that compliance with these laws must be a precondition for AI products entering the European market. They also express concern over the exclusion of international law enforcement cooperation from the proposal's scope and urge lawmakers to align the concept of risk to fundamental rights with the established EU data protection framework.