Georgian nonprofit calls for investigation into use of FRT to prosecute protestors

A prominent nonprofit in the country of Georgia has called for an investigation into the use of facial recognition cameras.

The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) claims the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is frequently using facial recognition cameras against protestors in criminal cases. The GYLA says that the practice is “especially noticeable” in criminal cases initiated when protesters are blocking the road, and that the “only” evidence in such cases are photographs taken from facial recognition cameras.

These are then considered sufficient evidence for the court to consider a person a criminal, according to the GYLA, and that the court does not assess whether a person was identified legally and whether the individual who made the identification had appropriate access to protected databases in accordance with personal data protection legislation.

The GYLA cites a report that claimed that the Public Safety Management Center 112, a unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, purchased 30 cameras with facial and emotion recognition (emotion recognition has been widely criticised as being unscientific) while protest demonstrations were going on.

GYLA said that the practice of using facial recognition and remote biometric technologies to identify individuals, and conducting “discriminatory surveillance,” undermines fundamental rights such as privacy, data protection, freedom of expression, the right to assemble and associate, equality and non-discrimination.

The GYLA called on the Personal Data Protection Service to “immediately” conduct an inspection at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and examine whether a data protection impact assessment was carried out in advance (this is a feature of Georgia’s Personal Data Protection law when there is a “high probability of a threat to the fundamental rights and freedoms of a person being violated”) and to investigate if access to information was lawful and compatible with personal data data protection standards.

The original post by the GYLA, in Georgian, can be read here.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  Georgia (country)  |  video surveillance