Facial recognition — coming soon to Monaco?
Monaco has over 1,000 video protection cameras - © Sarah Incari / Monaco Tribune
A draft bill has been tabled.
Last spring, the Government’s Department of the Interior answered our questions about the 1,057 video protection cameras installed in the Principality, confirming at the time that the system was unable to carry out facial recognition of individuals.
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A point that could change in the future: draft bill 1087 “on the use of video protection and video surveillance of places accessible to the public, for the detection, search and identification of persons wanted or reported by means of remote biometric identification systems” was submitted to the National Council on Tuesday December 19.
“Preserving public safety for the benefit of people and property has long been one of the pillars of the policy implemented by the Government of Monaco, under the high authority of the Sovereign Prince. […] In view of the growing and diversifying threats faced by the police services responsible for protecting people and property, improving the effectiveness of the tools and techniques at their disposal is, now more than ever, a key challenge in guaranteeing the continuity of this public safety”, reads the preamble.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, facial recognition can not only authenticate a person (to check that he or she is who he or she claims to be), but also identify a person (to find him or her within a group of individuals, in a place, an image or a database).
Security and freedom: striking a balance
“This draft bill is in line with these new uses, which help to detect and identify wanted persons remotely, using images from video protection systems deployed throughout the Principality, and when necessary, also images captured by video surveillance systems in places accessible to the public. The aim is to be able to automate certain tasks that are currently carried out, by eye, by the operators of the Direction de la Sûreté Publique responsible for operating the video protection network”, adds the text.
Keen to ensure that freedoms are preserved, the Prince’s Government went on to state that it wished to “give preference to recourse to the law, in order to determine the most appropriate legal framework for the effective, proportionate and transparent implementation of data processing involving the remote biometric identification technology envisaged by the present text and to be implemented by the Public Safety Department for the automation of certain tasks, enabling the tracing of wanted persons who will be registered on a dedicated alert list”.
The text also points out that “as biometric data are sensitive data, their processing is only authorised by European Union law in cases of ‘absolute’ necessity. While this legal framework is intended to be particularly restrictive, it should be noted that EU law is not very explicit on the requirements relating to this “absolute” character, which would justify the appropriateness of implementing data processing relating to the remote biometric identification of wanted persons in places accessible to the public, in the interests of public safety. A number of Member States have therefore begun discussions aimed at specifying in their domestic legislation the conditions and procedures that will enable police forces to use facial recognition technologies, particularly in public places.”
Consisting of four articles, the draft bill has been submitted to the Hemicycle’s Legislation Commission. It will shortly be debated, and potentially amended, by the elected representatives.