ICCL welcomes MEPs’ vote on face-tech
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has said that a vote in the European Parliament earlier this week has 鈥渧ery serious implications鈥 for the Government鈥檚 plans to allow garda铆 to use facial-recognition technology (FRT).
In a vote on Thursday (11 May), two committees of MEPs backed on the European Commission鈥檚 proposals for new rules on artificial intelligence (AI).
The MEPs backed an amended list of AI systems that would be prohibited 鈥 including 鈥榬eal-time鈥 remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces.
鈥楲辞辞辫丑辞濒别蝉鈥
The committees鈥 mandate also includes a ban on the indiscriminate scraping of biometric data from social-media or CCTV footage to create facial-recognition databases.
Before negotiations with the EU Council on the final form of can begin, the draft negotiating mandate needs to be endorsed by the whole parliament, with a vote expected during its 12-15 June session.
The ICCL welcomed the outcome of the vote, saying that it had 鈥渇ixed many loopholes鈥, and brought systems like ChatGPT into scope.
ICCL Senior Fellow Dr Kris Shrishak warned, however, that MEPs had 鈥渇ailed to take a firm stand on preventing companies from gobbling up data for free鈥.
He added that they had also 鈥渢ied regulators鈥 hands鈥 by preventing them from accessing the source code of AI systems for investigations.
Retrospective use
Olga Cronin (Senior Policy Officer, Surveillance and Human Rights) welcomed the move to ban live FRT in public spaces, but expressed concern that law-enforcement agencies could still use retrospective FRT under the draft legislation.
"FRT systems risk rights because they can allow for disproportionate mass surveillance, and turn us into human licence-plates by enabling the identification and tracking of individuals without warranted suspicion,鈥 she said.
Minister for Justice Simon Harris told the D谩il earlier this year, however, that FRT had 鈥減otentially transformational benefits鈥 for some areas of police work, adding that the Garda Commissioner and staff had made 鈥渁 compelling case鈥 for the use of such technology in certain, limited circumstances.