French national police have been illegally using the Israeli facial recognition software Briefcam since 2015, the French investigative media
Languages: Français | Deutsch
French national police have been illegally using the Israeli facial recognition software Briefcam since 2015, the French investigative media Disclose reported on Tuesday (14 November). The use of facial recognition software by law enforcement authorities is prohibited in France. Although still forbidden, this disposition has recently been more flexible for trial purposes in the context of the upcoming Paris Olympic Games in 2024. “In 2015, [French] law enforcement authorities secretly acquired a video surveillance image analysis software from the Israeli company Briefcam. For eight years, the Ministry of the Interior has concealed the usage of this tool, which enables the use of facial recognition,” states the article by Disclose. Disclose says it had access to internal emails and documents from the French national police, which constitute proof of using Briefcam without sufficient legal basis. Euractiv approached the French data privacy watchdog (CNIL), the French Digital Ministry, the Ministry of the Interior and the general directorate of the national police (DGPN) for comment, but no response was provided at the time of publication. Alleged legal breaches If confirmed, the usage of Briefcam would breach the French Informatics and Freedom law updated in 2019, stating that it is forbidden to “use any biometric identification system, [or] process any biometric data, and […] implement any facial recognition techniques”. This prohibition stems from the 2018 enforcement of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which states that processing of all biometric data is prohibited, including facial images.
continue reading
Israeli software, no doubt sold with the promise of automatically tagging all Arabs in a specific area.
I'll be generous and said the system was purchased after the Paris terrorist attacks in November 2015. It's done nothing to prevent the 37 incidents that have happened since, in quite a few cases where the suspects were known to the cops.
I've no doubt the software is being used elsewhere in the EU
