"Always the eyes that look at you and the voice that envelops you" – 1984, George Orwell
Whether it's the sinister description of F. Scott Fitzgerald in the eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg looking at the valley of the ashes as if "they were the eyes of God" in "The Great Gatsby", or the obsessive and prophetic imaginations of Orwell from "Big Brother" to "1984", it seems that someone has always watched. And although we are not yet in the era of "thought crime", we are entering an era where government surveillance is quickly becoming the norm and facial recognition technology is hiding in the streets.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many states turned to facial recognition technology as a way to combat the spread of the virus by tracking quarantine escapees or measuring the high temperatures of potentially infected people in the crowd. However, without proper regulation, we started to witness the often undetected spread of this technology, much like a virus that invades the host's body. This raises the question of what will happen when we emerge in the post-coronavirus world. Will these often invasive technological powers be reduced once the threat has passed? Or will they be kept under the pretext of public protection?
"Here we are looking at the EU, boy!"
Like the different approaches taken by governments around the world in their efforts to contain COVID-19, different jurisdictions have approached the regulation of facial recognition in various ways, creating confusion. More recently, the EU has waived the imposition of a five-year moratorium on the use of technology. Early drafts of the European Commission policy on artificial intelligence (AI) indicated that there would be a ban on analyzing possible abuses. However, the final version of the EU White Paper simply identifies the main risks. For example, "By analyzing large amounts of data and identifying the links between them, AI can be used to anonymize data … creating new risks for the protection of personal data." Therefore, facial recognition should only be used when it "is subject to adequate safeguards". But what is "adequate" in one Member State may be completely different in another. EU countries were left with their own regulatory devices, muddying the waters in their wake.
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The British approach characterizes this problem. Although technology is generally included in the Data Protection Law 2018 / GDPR, the Protection of Freedoms Law of 2012 and Article 8 of the Human Rights Law of 1998, there is no single instrument that analyzes facial recognition and associated technologies in detail. On the contrary, we have a patchwork frame which does not correspond to this technological sophistication; terrifying thought when the technology has already been implemented on an increasingly global scale.
As the world prepares to loosen the blocking restrictions, one of the main considerations is how to lessen the onset of a second wave. Enter contact tracking applications. If a person starts showing symptoms, they automatically report themselves in the app which will send alerts to all app users who have been present in the past two weeks. The app does this by registering all nearby users' phones via Bluetooth. Certainly, large red alarms should sound for reasons of confidentiality.
Like the broader regulatory response to new AI systems, several European countries have adopted different approaches to deal with this innovation. The main concern is how this data is processed and stored. NHSX (the digital innovation section of the UK National Health Service, or NHS) takes over the British app, which is currently being tested on the Isle of Wight. Unlike versions of Google and Apple, it is intended to store data on user interactions on a centralized server rather than on users' phones, raising fears that it will become a tool used for mass surveillance approved by the & # 39 ;State.
Italy and Germany have opted for a model focused on telephone storage, which gives up the use of GPS mapping. However, with these varying approaches in Europe, how can these systems be effectively regulated to prevent abuse? In April, a group of 177 cybersecurity experts signed an open letter to the British government, citing fears that when COVID-19 has passed, the data obtained from the app could be misused. The group wrote that "such invasive information may include the 'social graph' of the natural person encountered during a given period. With access to the social graph, a bad actor (State, private sector or hacker) could spy on citizens. "
Spectators at the party
The collection of government data is now unlimited. Human Rights Watch suggests that COVID-19 can be used to induce the permanent deployment of these systems, in the same way that the 2008 Beijing Olympics were used to establish the existing surveillance regime in China. Who can say that governments should reduce, especially when there is no codified law on how to process, store or dispose of data?
Instead, states have used this gap in the framework to do what they want. Contact tracking is just the tip of the technological iceberg. We are now faced with the deployment of "immunity passports", which will combine facial recognition technology and COVID-19 tests to get people back to work. The passport requires users to upload a selfie and photo of their identity to create a digital profile. The user would have an antibody or antigen test to confirm their immune status. Once at work, the app will generate a QR code to determine if they are free from infection and safe to enter. It sounds harmless, but whenever designs require the collection of personal information, abuse will be rife. A large amount of data will be stored on users' phones, which can be easily hacked to open a treasure trove of account passwords, bank details and everything stored there – your immunity by chance? These innovations could, among other things, "overload" identity fraud. Instead of false identification, false certificates of immunity where facial scanners and health records could be hacked to produce falsified results.
Orwell predicted it in "1984." "No one takes power with the intention of abandoning it," he wrote. "Big Brother" is watching us. But at the end of the day, isn't that the price we have to pay to start life again when we emerge after COVID? In the meantime, we have to get through the deluge of alarmism and misinformation that has reigned in global panic. The final fear, according to The Telegraph this week, is that "the British may not be able to travel abroad because the United Kingdom has not joined the international tracking request system". The truth is that we don't know how it will all work.
We do not know how the interconnectivity of tracking application systems will work as it has not been tested. What we do know is that we are facing the worst crisis in the world since World War II. In the fight against infection, it will be up to people to balance supposedly intrusive surveillance with the possibility of resuming their daily tasks. As for the law-abiding authors of this article, there is only one option: to be recognized.
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