It's not yet time to celebrate, folks, the new EU AI legislation falls WOEFULLY short of protecting our communities against the unacceptable roll out of facial recognition for mass surveillance – THREAD https://twitter.com/DigitalEU/status/1384851360559026178

1) The legislation is a HUGE missed opportunity to address some of the most pervasive rights-eroding technology of our time. Rather than imposing a blanket ban on facial recognition for mass surveillance, it proposes a limited ban, which amounts to frankly the bare minimum.

2) The regulation only bans 'real-time' facial recognition (LFR) for law enforcement in public spaces, which has already been extensively fought in courts as incompatible with especially principles of equality and non-discrimination (e.g. case of South Wales police).

3) Yet, it still allows for exemptions of its use, for example on people suspected of illegally entering or living in a EU member state, which will undoubtedly be weaponised against migrants and refugees.

4) The use of ‘real-time’ remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for purposes other than law enforcement is also not covered by this regulation. This does little to prevent private uses of live facial, emotion, thermal, and gait recognition tech.

5) It is blatantly clear that the distinction between ‘live’ and ‘post’ is a distraction, and an attempt to create a narrative that supposes facial recognition software deployed on existing video material is inherently less risky. This is not the case.

6) In reality, the police will still be able to use facial recognition software with CCTV cameras to track our every move, scraping images from social media accounts without people’s consent, in a flagrant violation of our right to privacy, equality and non-discrimination

7) In a Europe that has shown to have no qualms using AI systems against already marginalised populations, in particular against the backdrop of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, the legislation is simply not enough.

We need a comprehensive ban, NOW #BanTheScan