UK's ICO warns over 'Big Data' surveillance threat of live facial recognition in public – TechCrunch

The UK's chief data protection regulator has warned over reckless and inappropriate use of live facial recognition (LFR) in public places. Publishing an opinion today on the use of this biometric surveillance in public -- to set out what is dubbed as the "rules of engagement" -- the information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, also noted that a number of investigations already undertaken by her office into planned applications of the tech have found problems in all cases. "I am deeply concerned about the potential for live facial recognition (LFR) technology to be used inappropriately, excessively or even recklessly. When sensitive personal data is collected on a mass scale without people's knowledge, choice or control, the impacts could be significant," she warned in a blog post. "Uses we've seen included addressing public safety concerns and creating biometric profiles to target people with personalised advertising. "It is telling that none of the organisations involved in our completed investigations were able to fully justify the processing and, of those systems that went live, none were fully compliant with the requirements of data protection law.