Denmark announces increased budget for policing, including facial recognition

Denmark is planning significant investments in its police forces, including the expansion of facial recognition use.

Starting in 2030, the Scandinavian country plans to increase its policing budget by 1.5 billion Danish kroner (US$233.4 million) annually. The funding will be used to attract fresh recruits, raising the number of Danish police officers to more than 12,000 by 2030, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard announced last week.

Hummelgaard did not provide additional information on broadening facial recognition deployments. The Danish National Police and the Copenhagen Police have been piloting the technology since March, using it to track suspects in response to a rise in gang-related violence.

Last Wednesday, the Danish Data Ethics Council published a new report on police use of facial recognition, highlighting that the technology should only be used in a few “narrow and well-defined” scenarios. This includes automated passport control, victim recognition in child sexual abuse material, retrospective search in material within the public domain and retrospective image search in material from relevant people.

The Council also recommended a ban on the most intrusive applications, noting that the technology should supplement and not replace human assessment, online news outlet Fjordavisen reports.

Conclusions from the Data Ethics Council, which is part of the National Center for Ethics, echoed arguments published last month by the Danish Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet).

In its examination of the National Police’s impact assessment for the facial recognition pilot, the agency urges the police to clarify which specific criminal offences serve as the basis for the use of facial and object recognition.

According to police rules, facial recognition may only be used in cases of serious crimes that endanger people, including murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault and rape, and “similar violations.”

The Danish Data Protection Authority has previously requested the National Police to elaborate on what those “similar violations” are. The police, however, have argued that the list of violations should not be exhaustive, as it must be possible to deploy the technology during other serious and dangerous criminal offences.

This includes multiple criminal acts, multiple perpetrators, particularly dangerous methods, or similar conditions, according to Berlingske newspaper.

Justice Minister Hummelgaard has emphasized that the pilot does not use real-time or live facial recognition (LFR).

Aside from introducing new technology and recruiting new staff, Danish police forces also plan to establish a specialized program for digital and economic crimes to fight fraud and other cybercrimes, Politiken reports.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  criminal ID  |  data protection  |  Denmark  |  facial recognition  |  police