EU data regulators call for facial recognition ban in public spaces
European Union data protection regulators have called for a general ban on using artificial intelligence for facial recognition and other "biometric and behavioral signals" in public spaces. In their joint opinion, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) also said using AI for social scoring should be outlawed.
The EDPB and EDPS urged the bloc to prohibit AI “recognition of faces, gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes and other biometric or behavioral signals, in any context” in publicly accessible areas. They said it should be illegal for AI systems to use biometrics to categorize people "into clusters based on ethnicity, gender, political or sexual orientation," or other types of classification under which they could be discriminated against.
On top of that, the EDPB and EDPS argued that there should be a ban on using AI to "infer emotions of a natural person." It would be allowed in specific situations, such as on certain medical grounds.
