London (AFP)
The experiment was conducted in all discretion. Between 2016 and 2018, two surveillance cameras installed in the London neighborhood of King's Cross analyzed the faces of passers-by without preventing them by facial recognition, which could identify them and thus follow their movements.
The use of this cutting-edge technology near several busy London stations, revealed this summer by the Financial Times, has fueled the controversy surrounding it, in a democracy where its use does not yet have a legal framework.
The company in charge of the development of the zone assured to have acted "only to help the police (...) to prevent and to detect the crimes in the district", without commercial use.
But the British data protection officer, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), seized the case. He opened an investigation and expressed his concern about the increasing use of facial recognition, which makes it possible to compare the faces captured on video surveillance images to databases.
This case is not isolated and the association Big Brother Watch denounces an "epidemic": shopping centers in Manchester or Sheffield, a museum in Liverpool ...
Invoked as a safe progress by some, facial recognition is accused by others of undermining fundamental rights.
- "As assaulted" -
36-year-old Ed Bridges is resolutely awaiting his appeal to the Cardiff High Court and is suing the Welsh police for exposing him to this technology while he was shopping for Christmas in 2017 and at a protest in 2018. This is the first time that such action has been brought in the UK courts.
The police were acting on authorized tests and well signposted. But this employee from Cardiff University told AFP that he felt "attacked, stolen": "These are my data! In the same way that we do not give his passwords, we do not publish not our bank statements online, we have the right to expect (respect) our privacy and the state should support this right, not compromise it ".
For her lawyer, Megan Goulding, Liberty human rights organization, facial recognition generates a high risk of "self-censorship" for citizens exposed to such advanced surveillance technology.
However, according to a survey commissioned by the ICO at the beginning of the year, this practice enjoys widespread public support, with more than 80% of respondents expressing support for its use by the police.
- "Targeted" list -
When using facial recognition, the police rely on a "watch list" of wanted persons. The surveillance cameras translate the facial features of passers-by into a digital version, compared to the data in this list. If the "similarity score" is high enough, it performs a check.
In the case of Ed Bridges, the Cardiff High Court dismissed his complaint at first instance, finding the checklist sufficiently "targeted" because of "persons suspected of involvement in crimes" and pointing out that the complainant was not there.
But Elizabeth Denhamn, Commissioner for the Data Regulator, ICO, said the ruling did not justify indiscriminate use of technology, calling on the authorities to "slow down" its development pending a clear framework for such technology. practice.
London is particularly conducive to the deployment of facial recognition with its 420,000 surveillance cameras, according to a study by the Brookings Institution think tank (2017), which placed it just behind the 470,000 cameras in Beijing.
Several tests were carried out by the police. Daragh Murray, human rights specialist at the University of Essex, says their methodology is "inadequate": "People who refused to participate, who covered their faces ... were treated as suspects and the police arrested them. and asked them for their papers ".
Above all, this technology is "a real fundamental change in the balance of power between the state and the citizen" by "significantly increasing (...) the level of knowledge that the state can obtain on the citizens", continued Mr. Murray, questioned by AFP. "The question is more about whether it is legitimate interference or an unlawful breach" of privacy.
Together with ICO, he is advocating for the adoption of a legal framework to control the deployment of technology. Because the professor assures: "We are at the first generation of facial recognition, used to identify people we recognize, but the future generation will be able to identify people she does not know."
© 2019 AFP