An independent legal review published last month has concluded that the country urgently needs new laws to govern the use of biometric technologies, such as facial recognition, and has called for the government to urgently come forward with primary legislation.
Updates Needed To Facial Recognition Law
The two-year review, conducted by barrister Mathew Ryder QC, was commissioned by the independent Ada Lovelace Institute in response to increasing police and private use (including employers, schools and retailers) of biometric technologies such as facial recognition in the UK. Biometric data is any personal data relating to an individual’s body or behaviour, ranging from fingerprints, DNA and facial features to voice prints and iris scans. As well as being used to identify individuals, it can also categorise and make inferences about the behaviour of groups.
Critics of facial recognition technology have frequently raised concerns about its infringements on privacy, inaccuracies and the potential such technologies have to embed systemic bias.
The review warns that the UK’s current legal regime is ‘fragmented, confused and failing to keep pace’ with developments in biometrics. Ryder argues that new legislation should not only cover the use of biometrics for identification – as existing privacy laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulations already do – but should also include classification.
Among the review’s other recommendations are that comprehensive legislation governing the use of biometric technologies be introduced as a matter of urgency and that the public use of live facial recognition technology be temporarily banned until a legally binding code governing this area has been published. Another key recommendation is for a national biometrics ethics board to be set up, overseeing police usage of facial recognition in the country.
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