Petition against facial recognition submitted to Lausanne
An alliance of NGOs, including Amnesty International Switzerland, criticizes the lack of legal framework for this technology in a national campaign.
An alliance founded in November 2021 which fights against facial recognition brings together the civil society organizations AlgorithmWatch Switzerland, Amnesty International Switzerland and Digital Society.
AFP
A petition with more than 10,000 signatures calling for a ban on automatic facial recognition was delivered Monday to the syndic of Lausanne, Grégoire Junod. This claim is made by an alliance of NGOs as part of a national campaign.
“Recent investigations have shown that some police are already using highly controversial facial recognition software,” the alliance says on its website. “From there to a generalization of mass surveillance, there is only one step”, she writes. This technology is also used by individuals, for example to regulate members’ access to gyms, she adds.
Lack of transparency
“A particular challenge is that there is in principle little transparency about where and who uses biometric recognition systems,” critics say. “This is a significant obstacle that prevents a factual public debate on the subject.”
The spokesperson for Amnesty International Switzerland, Nadia Boehlen and the municipal councilor Benoît Gaillard were notably present when the petition was delivered in Lausanne. The latter submitted a postulate in November aimed at preventing the deployment of facial recognition technologies in the Vaud capital.
“Significant” concern
The syndic of Lausanne Grégoire Junod considers this concern “extremely important”. “There is a real challenge today in regulating these issues”, both in terms of private and public surveillance, he told RTS. Citing China where facial recognition has been “generalized” to become “an extremely strong tool of surveillance and social control”, according to him, he said he did not wish to move towards this type of societal model.
The petition will be delivered to Zurich city councilor Daniel Leupi on Wednesday. It will then be sent by post to the twenty largest Swiss cities and to the cantonal capitals.
Posted today at 3:24 p.m.
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