Oh Lords, grant us privacy

The House of Lords’ new report on “New Technologies and the application of the law” addresses the privacy concerns on the use of live facial recognition (LFR). This comes as no surprise given the continual backlash against the software, which has the potential to infringe on people’s privacy and disregard data protection. We must once again ask “how far is too far?”

Governments and other organisations – both public and private – have an acute responsibility to the public to communicate how facial recognition is being used and, in turn, embrace questioning and scrutiny to help both these institutions and the technology industry learn and improve.

Indeed, new research has found that more than half of Brits don’t feel government is currently clear enough on the technologies they use and how they use them.

This demonstrates that it is imperative that public bodies continue to focus on protecting public rights, while working to support technology innovation and where necessary tackle compliance with the law. Consequently, this will increase public trust and allow us to fully benefit from the technology available. Where responsible use cases allow, public bodies will need to build trust by introducing facial recognition in an open and lawful way.

This acknowledgement by the House of Lords will bring to the fore the importance of regulating LFR and help organisations use the technology lawfully. Now more than ever, transparency is required.

Joe Baguley