23 June 2021
Facial recognition technology poses a risk to people’s privacy, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has warned in a Commissioner’s Opinion
Denham said she was ‘deeply concerned about the potential for live facial recognition (LFR) technology to be used inappropriately, excessively or even recklessly’.
Her Opinion, which is based on six ICO investigations into LFR, sets out how data protection and privacy must be at the heart of decisions to deploy the technology.
She said: ‘It is telling that none of the organisations involved in our completed investigations were able to fully justify the processing and, of those systems that went live, none were fully compliant with the requirements of data protection law.’
She said organisations would need to justify the use of LFR was fair, necessary and proportionate in each specific context.
