From Martha Spurrier, Liberty <[email protected]>
Subject Victory – police facial recognition is unlawful
Date August 11, 2020 2:22 PM
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[[link removed]]Dear John,

We won! Today the Court of Appeal has said that South Wales Police’s use of
facial recognition technology in public is unlawful.

The Court’s ruling will have major implications for police forces across the
country and is a crucial step in our mission to get the privacy-abusing,
discriminatory tech banned.

A world first

Our case with Ed Bridges is the world’s first legal challenge to police use of
facial recognition.

Ed was scanned by the tech – which ‘maps’ the faces of everyone in range of
special cameras and ‘matches’ them to images on secretive watch lists. This
happened while he was Christmas shopping, and again at a peaceful protest.

Ed argued that snatching his personal biometric data (the unique measurements of
his face) without his knowledge or consent violated his right to privacy. He
also raised that the tech is discriminatory – it is known to misidentify people
of colour, meaning they are more likely to be stopped by the police – and its
use breaches data protection laws.

The Court agreed with our case, stating that it does indeed breach privacy
rights, data protection laws and equality laws and South Wales Police must
immediately halt its use of live facial recognition in public.

Now ban it

This is a major victory, but we can’t stop here.

There has been much talk of Parliament creating laws to govern facial
recognition’s use, but this can’t solve the privacy concerns or correct the
tech’s in-built discrimination.

The only way to mend these problems is to ban it altogether.

Several US cities have recognised this and have done just that. It’s time for us
to follow.

Almost 50,000 people have already signed our petition calling for a ban. Sign it
today and share it with friends and family.

Together we will get facial recognition off our streets.

Thank you for your support.

Martha Spurrier
Director



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