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14.10.2021 7 INTERVIEW THE European Parliament has voted to back a total ban on biometric mass surveillance. AI-powered remote surveillance technologies such as facial recognition have huge implications for fundamen- tal rights and freedoms like privacy but are already creeping into use in public in Europe. To respect "privacy and human dig- nity", MEPs said that EU lawmakers should pass a permanent ban on the automated recognition of individuals in public spaces, saying citizens should only be monitored when suspected of a crime. e parliament has also called for a ban on the use of private facial recog- nition databases — such as the contro- versial AI system created by US startup Clearview (also already in use by some police forces in Europe) — and said predictive policing based on behav- ioural data should also be outlawed. MEPs also want to ban social scoring systems which seek to rate the trust- worthiness of citizens based on their behaviour or personality. Back in April, the EU's executive pre- sented draft legislation for regulating high risk uses of artificial intelligence technology — which included a ban on social scoring and prohibition in prin- cipal on the use of remote biometric surveillance in public. However civil society, the European Data Protection Board and Europe- an Data Protection Supervisor and a number of MEPs quickly warned that the Commission's proposal did not go far enough. e parliament as a whole has now made it clear it also wants stronger safeguards for fundamental rights. In a resolution adopted on Tuesday — with the parliament voting 377:248 in favor of the LIBE committee's report on Artificial Intelligence in criminal law — parliamentarians sent a strong signal over what they will accept in the upcoming negotiations between EU institutions that will nail down the de- tails of the Artificial Intelligence Act. e relevant paragraph on remote bi- ometric surveillance calls on the Com- mission to: "…implement, through legislative and non-legislative means, and if necessary through infringement proceedings, a ban on any processing of biometric data, including facial images, for law enforcement purposes that leads to mass surveillance in publicly accessible spaces; calls further on the Commis- sion to stop funding biometric research or deployment or programmes that are likely to result in indiscriminate mass surveillance in public spaces" e resolution also takes aim at al- gorithmic bias, calling for human su- pervision and strong legal powers to prevent discrimination by AI — es- pecially in a law enforcement and the border-crossing context. Human operators must always make the final decisions, MEPs agreed, saying that subjects monitored by AI-powered systems must have access to remedy. To ensure fundamental rights are upheld when using AI-based identifi- cation systems — which MEPs noted have been shown to misidentify mi- nority ethnic groups, LGBTI people, seniors and women at higher rates — algorithms should be transparent, traceable and sufficiently documented, they also said. ey also called for public authorities to use open-source software in order to be more transparent, wherever pos- sible. MEPs also targeted a controversial EU-funded research project — to cre- ate a 'smart' lie-detector based on ana- lyzing facial expressions — saying the iBorderCtrl project should be discon- tinued. Commenting in a statement, rappor- teur Petar Vitanov (S&D, BG) said: "Fundamental rights are uncondition- al. For the first time ever, we are calling for a moratorium on the deployment of facial recognition systems for law en- forcement purposes, as the technology has proven to be ineffective and often leads to discriminatory results. We are clearly opposed to predictive policing based on the use of AI as well as any processing of biometric data that leads to mass surveillance. is is a huge win for all European citizens." e Commission has been contacted for comment on the vote. e parliament's resolution also calls for a ban on AI assisting judicial deci- sions — another highly controversial area where automation is already been applied, with the risk of automation ce- menting and scaling systemic biases in criminal justice systems. Global human rights charity, Fair Trials, welcomed the vote — calling it a "landmark result for fundamental rights and non-discrimination in the technological age". MEPs back ban on remote biometric surveillance This article is part of a content series called Ewropej. This is a multi-newsroom initiative part-funded by the European Parliament to bring the work of the EP closer to the citizens of Malta and keep them informed about matters that affect their daily lives. These articles reflect only the authors' view. The European Parliament is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

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