More sports stadiums are using facial recognition technology to monitor spectators, and a leading privacy nonprofit is appealing to the United Nations to intervene.
According to Privacy International (PI), 25 of the world's top 100 soccer stadiums have augmented their existing video surveillance with such technology. The organization submitted its findings and recommendations to the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights.
The UN office is preparing a report on the right to participate in sport, which is due to be presented to the UN General Assembly in October.
The PI report said a growing number of sports venues are testing facial recognition technology, and some have begun experimenting with artificial intelligence for crowd monitoring and policing. The paper noted that French authorities plan to use AI to monitor public spaces at this summer's Olympics in Paris.
PI and seven other organizations previously appealed to France's Constitutional Court to block the use of AI at the Paris Olympics, but the court ruled that the introduction of AI technology did not violate constitutional rights. did.
“The introduction of such intrusive technologies not only raises serious questions about privacy and data protection, but also ethical questions about whether modern democracies should allow their use,” PI said in a letter to UN special rapporteur Alexandra Zantaki.
“The radical introduction of FRT will inevitably lead to normalized surveillance at all levels of society and will have a 'chilling effect' on the exercise of fundamental rights, including the right to freely participate in and enjoy sport.” the report added.
PI pointed to the 2023 revelation that the owner of Madison Square Garden used facial recognition to ban and even expel lawyers affiliated with the firm that sued him, and said that such technology has been used inappropriately in the past, he said.
The technology is also used at sporting events to discriminate against women in oppressive societies, the PI noted. In 2018, Iranian authorities arrested two women as they tried to watch a soccer match at the city's Azadi Stadium.
There are currently 500 closed-door television cameras installed at the venue, and in the past they have targeted women disguised as men and removed them from matches. In December, Iranian authorities began reserving a limited number of seats reserved for women at Azadi for the first time.
The PI is calling on the United Nations to prevent countries from using technology at sporting events unless necessary to investigate serious crimes. Ensure that certain AI surveillance technologies do not lead to discrimination by providing a “systematic evaluation” of their impact. Regularly monitor human rights performance. and ensure redress for those whose rights have been violated.
“Facial recognition is dangerous when it gets it wrong, but it's even more dangerous when it works perfectly,” said Jake Wiener, an attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Sports venues are particularly inappropriate locations for facial recognition because sport is closely tied to speech, protest, and personal identity.”
He added that these technologies “have the potential to over-criminalize harmless conduct, lead to false arrests and stifle speech.”
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