The Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament presented, on Monday 25 October. a study on biometric and behavioural mass surveillance in the EU Member States. The political group also proposed several ways to consider the future of this technology in the EU.
“The report reveals the testing and deployment of biometric mass surveillance technology in the EU and also shows the ineffectiveness of many of these technologies in fighting crime”, said German MEP Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA).
The green MEPs said they felt that a number of projects in this area had “failed to meet their objectives” and had “shown high rates of false positives wrongly incriminating citizens”.
In addition to a halt to EU funding of projects to develop these technologies, the Greens/EFA group proposes several options, including a moratorium, raising awareness or an “outright” ban on the technology.
However, for the moment, the Greens/EFA position does not bring all the political families in the European Parliament on board.
“There is strong support from the Renew Europe group, the S&D and The Left. We do not have the support of the European People’s Party (EPP) and we do not agree on all issues with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the group Identity and Democracy (ID). This is likely to be very complicated”, a source close to the case told EUROPE.
The issue of biometric recognition is particularly relevant in the context of the proposal for a regulation on artificial intelligence (AI) presented by the European Commission last 21 April (see EUROPE 12811/10).
In addition to the European Parliament, several Member States have also expressed reservations about biometric recognition, such as Lithuania, which claims that “further analysis” is needed (see EUROPE 12812/2).
See the study: https://bit.ly/3jADbma (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)