The European Union plans to expand a database used to share DNA, fingerprints and other data linked to criminals by adding facial recognition data to the mix.
According to a report (opens in a new tab) from Wired, which spoke with several privacy advocates about the upcoming changes, several EU member countries have requested the addition of facial recognition data to help catch criminals.
The plans are part of a broader push to "modernise" the police in the 27-member bloc and are covered by the Prüm II data-sharing proposals. The EU originally announced the return in December.
"What you're creating is the most extensive biometric surveillance infrastructure that I think we've ever seen in the world," said Ella Jakubowska, who works for European Digital Rights (EDRi).
It's a worrying development for anyone who rejects non-consensual facial recognition systems, which most privacy advocates are. The potential for abuse of such a widespread and endemic system is enormous.
Despite the EU's generally pro-privacy stance and efforts to regulate tech giants and AI, Prüm II allows the use of retrospective facial recognition, based on CCTV footage, social media and ID photos.
a scary future
The EU proposals mean that any police force within the EU could match a photo to those in the database, an enormously powerful system for finding people at will. A document obtained by EDRi shows that there could be between 10 and 100 facial matches for a given search.
The documents, which are from April 2021, provide insight into the sheer volume of images available. Hungary, for example, has a database of 30 million photos; Italy has 17 million, France 6 million and Germany 5,5 million.
Modern surveillance is so ubiquitous and powerful that the abuse vectors available to it are enormous. While the EU says that “Only facial images of suspects or convicted criminals may be exchanged”, it is easy to see how this can be abused.
'Suspects', for example, is a term that could be interpreted very broadly, and there are few resources to monitor once abuse has occurred.