Face recognition in public - EU mulls ban

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union is considering banning facial recognition technology in public areas for up to five years, to give it time to work out how to prevent abuses, according to proposals seen by Reuters.

The plan by the EU’s executive – set out in an 18-page white paper – comes amid a global debate about the systems driven by artificial intelligence and widely used by law enforcement agencies.

EU mulls five-year ban on face recognition tech in public areas.

The idea of a five-year ban while officials and others figure out how to prevent face recognition abuse seems wise. We’ve not been good at thinking in terms of ‘hey wait a moment, how do we want this to work?’ in the past.

Of course, there are many governments, companies and others who can’t wait to abuse face recognition technology.