SNP justice secretary urged to ban Police Scotland use of 'mass surveillance' technology
Amnesty International has urged the Scottish Government to intervene
A leading human rights charity has called on Scotland’s justice secretary to intervene and block the use of controversial live facial recognition technology by the nation’s police force.
Amnesty International warned Police Scotland’s adoption of the artificial intelligence powered tech would represent an “historic shift” in the force’s relationship with the public, and undermine Scotland’s human rights obligations.
The charity has urged Justice Secretary Angela Constance to start work on drafting a legal ban to prevent the roll-out of the technology, which it described as “a mode of mass surveillance by design”.
A survey by Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) found earlier this year that almost half (48 per cent) of Scots would feel uncomfortable with the roll-out of the surveillance technology. However, the force has announced it will continue to pursue the technology’s introduction.
In August, Deputy Chief Constable Jane Connors told an SPA meeting that its approach was supported by the authority and the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner as “legal, ethical, and underpinned by our value and human rights”. She said the force had developed a rights-based pathway and an approach to data ethics that could give confidence and “necessary scrutiny”.
But Liz Thomson, Amnesty’s Scotland programme director, stressed there was no “human rights compliant way” to deploy the technology. She said: “Where it is used elsewhere in the UK, live facial recognition has been subject to legal challenge and has been found to breach privacy rights, data protection laws and equality laws.
“Amnesty’s research has also demonstrated that facial recognition technology can have a disproportionate impact on black and brown people, undermining the right to equality and non-discrimination.”
She added: “The implications of the decision to move forward with live facial recognition should not be under-estimated. Adoption of the technology would represent a historic shift in the relationship between Police Scotland and the public.”
In a letter to Ms Constance, Ms Thomson asked her to hold the SPA accountable for its duties under human rights and equalities legislation, and to support its call for the force’s plans to be dropped.
She wrote: “I am also asking you to explore approaches to prohibiting the use of live facial recognition on a statutory basis. Amnesty wants to see a ban on this technology in Scotland and globally.
“This matter cannot be left to Police Scotland and the SPA. As justice secretary, you have a pivotal role to play in ensuring that law enforcement works in accordance with its human rights obligations.”
Ms Thomson has also written to Chief Constable Jo Farrell and Fiona McQueen, chair of the SPA, asking them to reconsider the proposals. Amnesty wants the SPA to publish a detailed overview of its plans to date, including information on what formal evaluation and impact assessment has been completed detailing their compatibility with statutory equalities and human rights duties.
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We have received correspondence, which will be responded to in due course.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The lawful, effective and proportionate use of any technology with live facial recognition capability is an operational matter for Police Scotland, who must abide by data protection laws, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner’s statutory code of practice.”