Security News > 2023 > May > UK's GDPR replacement could wipe out oversight of live facial recognition

Biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner Professor Fraser Sampson has warned that oversight of facial recognition is a risk just as the policing minister plans to "Embed" it into the force.

Sampson's job, if you were wondering, is to encourage "Compliance with the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice" - the only legal instrument that addresses police use of live facial recognition directly.

The warning lands a day after Sampson, a solicitor specializing in policing law, wrote to the committee overseeing the second take on the bill [PDF] the government hopes will replace the UK's implementation of GDPR. With UK policing minister Chris Philp planning "To embed facial recognition technology in policing and ... considering what more the government can do to support the police on this," it becomes all the more pressing, as Sampson described in a post yesterday.

Legal eagle Chris Pounder at HawkTalk Training has also been watching the new bill, and recently wrote he had "Come to the conclusion that the new definition of personal data in the Data Protection and Digital Information No.2 Bill only applies to facial recognition CCTV if the data subject is on a watch-list," adding that the effect would be that many facial recognition systems "Will process personal data in total secrecy."

Privacy activists at Big Brother Watch, which regularly gives evidence on civil liberties to UK government and its regulators, have warned that Met Police facial recognition has been found to be "85 percent inaccurate 2016-2023.".

Giving evidence [PDF] in September 2021, it has also expressed concerns that several UK police forces have also collaborated with "Private companies using facial recognition surveillance."

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/05/19/dpib_2_surveillance_oversight/