São Paulo Subway Ordered to Suspend Use of Facial Recognition
upstart writes:
Sao Paulo subway ordered to suspend use of facial recognition:
The company responsible for running the Sao Paulo metro system was ordered to suspend the use of facial recognition technology.
According to the decision issued on Tuesday by judge Cynthia Thome at the Sao Paulo State Court, Companhia do Metropolitano de Sao Paulo (METRO) must immediately suspend the process to capture and processing of biometric data for facial recognition in the context of the implementation of an electronic surveillance system.
Moreover, the company has been ordered to immediately suspend the roll-out of new equipment that promotes data capture and biometrics processing for facial recognition. The decision also sets a daily fine in the event of non-compliance.
The decision follows a civil lawsuit initiated by several civil rights organizations calling for a ban on the use of facial recognition technology amid discrimination concerns. According to the latest sentence, the entities argued that despite the fact this was not explicit in the public notice for the system, one of its objectives is implementing a facial recognition system of all subway users, with capacity for data storage and sharing.
The claimants argued that the electronic monitoring system would involve facial recognition, with images of all 4 million daily metro users captured by a system called SecurOS. The goal is to store data, and there is a possibility that SecurOS will be integrated with other electronic monitoring systems based on facial recognition.
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