Facial recognition system is justified by the legitimate goals like searching for missing children and combating crime, including terrorism. But experience suggests that the system is already being used for illegal control of people much more actively than for a real fight against crime.


Facial Recognition System is advanced dual-use technology.


We ask for a moratorium on the use of Facial Recognition System by law enforcement and supervisory authorities regarding persons who were not involved in any offenses and did not consent to the use of their biometric data. The moratorium must act until all sociological and legal studies have been completed with respect to the consequences of using the system. Also the moratorium should be in effect until the adoption of appropriate legal safeguards which prohibit data abuse and protect its safety.


The moratorium should be applied to any type of regulations, federal and regional programs, including the subjects of the Russian Federation who seek to use the system for law enforcement purposes or to control the movement of citizens.


Such measures are necessary to protect Russians from an extremely serious threat to their constitutional rights to privacy. Technologies that are suitable for surveillance will certainly be used for surveillance.


The technology will allow to track people without their consent in real time, correlate them with digital profiles and identify people in their daily lives. And it will allow to influence their behavior in order to limit some types of "undesirable behavior" recognized as such by a narrow group of political forces. This ability is dreadful because it threatens to create a world where people are observed and identified when they commit legal acts - if they participate in a peaceful civil protest, gather in a place of religious worship, visit a doctor or go to university.


At the same time, the current legislation:

• does not allow the collection of biometric data of citizens and their processing, including the recognition of their faces without their knowledge and their proper consent;
  
  

• does not contain provisions allowing both the use of such technology by law enforcement agencies and the establishment of legal safeguards against abuse and misuse of data.
  
  

Currently, the Moscow Government and the Ministry of Internal Affairs continue to expand the use of Facial Recognition System without any guarantees and proper supervision tools. The Moscow govt announced the connection of more than 100,000 city cameras to this system. For this, the authorities are going to spend more than 13 billion rubles (about $200 million)


When using this technology in relation to specific individuals, it is necessary to obtain a court decision to limit the right to privacy. However, there are currently no requirements for law enforcement agencies that require such judicial sanctions before using Facial Recognition. As well as there is no really working supervision over whose faces are uploaded to these databases and who, and also on the basis of which has access to such databases.


This issue has already become a matter of most serious concern in other countries. The technology is already being used to identify people protesting against police brutality in the US and UK.. In China, it has been deployed to control representatives of religious minorities - Uyghurs.


Understanding technological capabilities of surveillance, which will undoubtedly destroy privacy and significantly affect human rights many critics call this situation "digital totalitarianism". Watching the terrible Chinese example, in the US, UK and EU progressive political forces are actively working on the development of bills prohibiting police and authorities at various levels from using Facial Recognition System to track and capture people. San Francisco and other US cities have already banned the use of the System.


Taking into account that in Russia there is no proper oversight of the organization of surveillance of citizens, measures for the mass introduction of such technologies endanger the fundamental rights of Russian citizens and other persons located here.


The decision of the Grand Chamber of the ECHR of December 4, 2015 in the case of Roman Zakharov v. Russia, which examined the organization of the Russian system for wiretapping mobile phones and intercepting any other information outside the framework of criminal investigations, established that arbitrary and insulting tracking practice was in effect in Russia .


The European Court of Human Rights has established that the Russian court does not exercise control over making a decision authorizing wiretapping. The court does not have access to information about the methods and tactics of operative-search activities, it does not check for reasonable suspicion of a crime, the facts of the case and the proportionality under Art . 8 of the Convention. In addition, there is no any possibility of monitoring the availability of wiretapping permission at the time it started. Regarding the control of wiretapping after issuing a permission, the Grand Chamber noted that the court that issued the permission was not notified of the progress and results of the wiretapping and prosecutorial supervision was ineffective, also the person who was being tapped would never know that such a thing had happened to him. Thus, the Russian SORM system was found to be incompatible with the requirements of Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.


To date, the ECHR decision in the Zakharov case has not been enforced in Russia, the surveillance system has not changed, and with the adoption of the "Yarovaya Law" and a number of other laws, the situation only got worse.


Since 2015, the Russian authorities have taken a number of steps aimed at seriously restricting the right to respect for private life and confidentiality of correspondence. The authorities have extended the system of constant direct control of conversations to all Internet communications. The most controversial measure is the so-called "Yarovaya Law" adopted on July 6, 2016. The law is a package of amendments, in particular, to the Federal Law "On Information, Information Technologies and the Protection of Information" and the Federal Law "On Communications" under the pretext of countering terrorism. These amendments were affecting various aspects of telecommunications regulation, including those related to privacy and anonymity. Technically, the information storages should provide for constant remote unlimited access of special services with the help of technical means to all user data that telecom operators and Internet services are required to store for a long time.


In addition, Russia remains a country with inadequate protection of personal data. This is due to very weak legislation, as well as the lack of independence, impartiality and proper authority of the authorized agencies that oversees and inquires into the protection of human privacy. At the same time, numerous leaks of personal data from state and banking systems go unpunished.


Artificial intelligence for mass Facial Recognition will provide the state with total control over social reality. It can make power all-seeing and, at the same time, invisible to society.


The cameras scan everyone in sight - adults and children - grabbing our deeply personal biometric data without our consent. This is a gross violation of our privacy.

If we know that our faces are watching and identifying, we change our behavior. We may decide not to express our views publicly because of the risk of being punished for participating in a peaceful protest. In accordance with the law and universally recognized international human rights standards we must not change the way we live and act in order to protect ourselves from unreasonable observation. Facial recognition technology makes us less free.


As part of a public campaign conducted by Roskomsvoboda, we demand a moratorium on the use of Facial Recognition Technology by law enforcement and supervisory authorities in relation to persons who were not involved in any offenses and did not consent to the use of their biometric data.