The Network Rights Coalition, the Take My Rosto da Sua Mira campaign and other digital rights entities have asked the rapporteur of PL 2338/2023, MP Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB), to abandon the intention to make the use of facial recognition technologies in public spaces more flexible. The parliamentarian declared, at the end of November, that the text approved by the Senate would be “too restrictive”.
The organizations published a technical document emphasizing that the project, in its current form, already creates a “regulatory vacuum”. Although it calls facial recognition an “excessive risk” technology, it lists exceptions so broad that, according to the entities, they leave virtually all public safety uses outside of transparency and oversight mechanisms.
They say a new round of easing would increase constitutional violations, risks of racial discrimination and waste of public resources.
The text warns of budgetary and operational failures of programs already underway. At Smart Sampa, in São Paulo, monthly expenses reach 10 million reais per month; in Bahia, more than 600 million reais have been invested since 2019, an amount that could finance 1,500 ambulances or maintain a hospital for 32 years, according to the “O Panóptico” project. Independent studies also highlight low effectiveness and a lack of transparency on results.
The entities highlight recent cases of false positives that led to the arrest of innocent people, particularly black people, including that of an 80-year-old man mistaken for a fugitive at a UBS (Basic Health Units) in São Paulo and that of a civil servant approached at a racial equality event in Rio de Janeiro. “Error rates are much higher among blacks, which widens historical inequalities,” said Jonas Valente, researcher at UnB and member of the Coalition.
The document argues that the massive use of biometrics violates the principles of public administration, the fundamental right to data protection, freedom of assembly and the presumption of innocence, in addition to exposing the sensitive information of the population to private, often foreign, companies. The organizations argue that policies of this type should only be adopted after a regulatory impact assessment, public consultation and robust governance mechanisms – which they say do not exist today.
The entities ask Congress to strengthen the guarantees of PL 2338/2023 and defend the abandonment of initiatives that expand the use of facial recognition in public security until, in their opinion, there is a legal framework that is coherent, transparent and compatible with the Constitution.
with DIEGO ALEJANDRO, KARINA MATIAS and VICTORIA CÓCOLO
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