16/03/2022 (Agence Europe) – Marcel Kolaja MEP (Greens/EFA, Czech Republic) called, on Tuesday 15 March, for a ban on the use of facial recognition systems in public spaces. Rapporteur for the opinion of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education concerning artificial legislation (AI), the Czech MEP said that “we should not give a blank cheque to a European government that wants to abuse this technology to track and persecute its own citizens”. The issue of facial recognition and surveillance via AI systems are among the central topics in the discussions on artificial intelligence (see EUROPE 12876/18) in the European Parliament. On 6 October 2021, MEPs voted in plenary session on a resolution to limit the use of artificial intelligence by police and judicial authorities (see EUROPE 12805/20). (TM)