SBB doesn’t want to recognize faces – but it’s hardly possible without them
The SBB has been harshly criticized for its plan to follow people at the train stations more closely. These, in turn, feel misunderstood. Experts classify.
In the future, SBB wants to record the flow of commuters even more precisely at over 50 stations.
Photo: Keystone (Christian Beutler)
Will the SBB soon be looking at our wallets, our feet or even our faces when we go shopping at the train station? A report from the consumer portal «K tip» has been causing a stir for days. The federal railways want to equip more than 50 train stations with special cameras in order to see even more precisely how people are moving.
The new technology should recognize faces in the future, as various media wrote – and even record how much money people leave in the grocery store or at the kiosk. The criticism of the project is great: Experts warn of violations of data protection, Politicians announce legal action in the media.
The Federal Railways, for their part, emphasized in a statement that data protection would remain guaranteed. Face recognition is not used. Because of “misinterpretations”, the SBB added the official tender on the procurement platform Simap on Thursday.
So it’s all just a misunderstanding? Not quite.
«Clearly recognized» vs. «no identification»
The origin of the outcry was the SBB tender for the so-called customer frequency measurement system 2.0. The more than 100-page documents on the offer that are available in this newspaper say: “A person should be able to be clearly recognized during the entire stay in the station.”
It should be possible to record the gender, age group and height of a commuter, as well as items such as wheelchairs, suitcases or animals.
In the documents for the tender, the SBB specify several identifying features.
Photo: Call for tenders for customer frequency measurement system 2.0
In the specification now attached, the SBB write that “no identification of persons” should be possible. You don’t want face recognition, no biometric data.
The civil society organizations Algorithm Watch CH and the digital society are not convinced. They launched an open letter to the SBB on Thursday and wrote: “For the biometric categorization of people according to criteria such as gender or age, it can be assumed that the SBB would have to resort to evaluating faces.”
So what now: Can people be clearly identified without their faces being recorded?
The Federal Data Protection Commissioner Adrian Lobsiger says: “There are corresponding technological processes.” The images would be segmented directly in all recording cameras and converted into a value using an algorithm. This value is then included in a movement statistic, “without it being possible to draw conclusions about individual people”.
Adrian Lobsiger, Federal Data Protection Commissioner (EDBÖ).
Photo: Joseph Khakshouri
Murat Karaboga from the German Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI is more skeptical about the SBB project. He is co-author of the study “Automated recognition of voice, language and face: technical, legal and social challenges”, which was commissioned by the TA-Swiss Foundation.
“I wouldn’t know how age and gender recognition can work reliably without facial recognition,” says Karaboga. Because even if biometric data “only” remained in the camera system, the question of IT security would arise. Especially in times of constant hacker attacks.
“I wouldn’t know how age and gender recognition can work reliably without facial recognition.”
According to the SBB tender, it should already be clear in July who will receive the order and which technology will be used. Before the cameras are installed, data protection officer Lobsiger will keep a close eye on them.
He had already agreed with SBB in October 2022 that they would have to submit a so-called data protection impact assessment “because the project is potentially associated with high risks (re-identification)”. Only then will he comment on the project.
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