On 28 June, the Pride parade will take place in Budapest, Hungary. The Hungarian police is allowed to use face recognition systems even for minor offences, which include jaywalking or attending the Pride parade.[1] Anyone taking part in the Pride parade can now be identified from a distance and be punished using this technology.[2] This way, the LGBTQIA+ community in Hungary is being deliberately intimidated and criminalized. This is unacceptable!
This form of mass surveillance leads to a decline of our fundamental rights. Using intrusive surveillance technology may have a chilling effect on free speech and the right to protest freely.
Now is the time for the EU to show its teeth and enforce the AI Act, as this act prohibits face recognition in public spaces for surveillance purposes. The EU member states need to consider this a wake-up call and put an end to face recognition in public spaces.
This is already a few years old and it’s been a cat and mouse game for years already. This was done in Hong Kong for a while and it turned out difficult for them because you can’t easily remove it, you are still recognizable as someone who went there. I believe the next step was using more subtle make-up to give their face a different look because facial recognition makes a pattern, changing where your cheekbones seem end and start or how point your chin looks breaks the system. But then the police started tweaking their system so they could better see faces with filters and infra-red camera’s so I believe now they use small devices that blur of block the camera’s view of the face. Might be that also doesn’t work anymore but haven’t heard much about Hong kong lately tbh.
This might work if your always in a big group and want to prevent being found later, because if you make it home unseen they might not be able to track you there. But still, although your real face isn’t recognizable by regular camera’s, you as an individual are still easily tracked since you stand out.