Facial recognition, how the Sari is used
What did the Minister of the Interior, Lamorgese, reply to the question of the deputies dem Sensi and Borghi on the use of the Sari facial recognition system by the police
The Sari facial recognition system "is not in use in the sphere of the activities of the central immigration directorate and the border police and does not have diversified fields according to the subjects (Italian citizens, migrants, etc.) but rather a system that it will work in an undifferentiated way to support investigative activities ".
This was clarified by the Minister of the Interior, Luciana Lamorgese, in a question time in the Chamber, in response to the question of the deputies dem Enrico Borghi and Filippo Sensi.
In recent years, the use of facial recognition technology by the police (and its implications in terms of privacy and protection of personal data) has led to a debate not only abroad , but also in Italy.
So much so that the Democratic Party had already presented a parliamentary question last year to ask the Interior Ministry for some clarification on the use of the Sari software, the automatic image recognition system.
Here are all the details on the new explanations provided by the Ministry of the Interior.
THE INTERROGATION OF THE DEPUTY FILIPPO SENSI
As stated in the question signed by the deputy Pd, Filippo Sensi, "according to an investigation by the newspaper IrpiMedia , the Ministry of the Interior would be willing to develop this system to use real-time facial recognition on migrants:" tactical system for monitor the landing operations and all the various types of related illegal activities, videotape them and identify the parties involved "; the same survey supports the existence of a project, extended to all citizens, the Sari Real-Time system, conceived to «support territorial control operations during events and / or demonstrations» in real time.
I CLARIFICATION OF THE MINISTER LAMORGESE ON THE FACIAL RECOGNITION SYSTEM
Lamorgese recalled that the Ministry of the Interior "has launched a project aimed at introducing an automatic image recognition system (Sari) in order to guarantee effective support for institutional activities aimed at the repression of crimes and the protection of order and security public. The Sari system consists of two independent components. The first Sari Enterprise and the second Sari Real Time ”. ( Here the in-depth analysis by Start on the company that supplied the Sari software to the Interior Ministry )
HOW SARI ENTERPRISE WORKS
Sara Enterprise entered into operation in September 2018 following the positive opinion of the Guarantor for the protection of personal data. It allows to trace the identity of an individual by comparing faces against a list of candidates selected from all the mugshots present in the Afis fingerprint identification database. Lamorgese highlighted that Sari Enterprise is a software that can only be used by operators of the State Police and the Carabinieri, after specific training and qualification.
The images are acquired both by the police offices (which carry out investigations relating to a criminal case) and by the international police cooperation service and the central direction of the criminal police.
THE DATA PRESENT IN THE AFIS BANK
As the Interior Ministry had specified last year “in the Afis database there are currently 17,592,769 photo-signaling tags, acquired in accordance with the law, corresponding to 9,882,490 different individuals, of which 2,090,064 refer to Italian citizens. Conversely, the Sari, being a software and not a database, does not contain any data ".
THE GOAL OF THE GUARANTOR OF PRIVACY ON SARI ENTERPRISE
"As regards the protection of confidentiality, – recalled Lamrgose – the Guarantor has considered that it does not constitute a new treatment of personal data but only a new method of treatment of biometric data in compliance with current regulations".
WHAT IS SARI REAL TIME
"The second component, 'Real time' – continued Lamorgese – allows the acquisition and transmission of video streams in different operating contexts through a multi-technological system if it is necessary to compare images in real time with the faces in a specific database".
THE REQUEST FOR EVALUATION BY THE PRIVACY GUARANTOR
On this component, Realtime, discussions are still underway with the Privacy Guarantor who had requested an impact assessment on privacy from the Interior Ministry. The Ministry of the Interior has found the request by sending the Guarantor its evaluation document with which the specific purpose of the processing and the methods of acquisition, storage and cancellation of the acquired data have been highlighted.
Lamorgese therefore specified that pending the decisions of the authority, the real time component of the system is not in use.
A MORATORY WAITING FOR MORE REGULATION?
In conclusion, the Minister of the Interior specified how the facial recognition system is used in Italy but did not answer the question if he does not consider a moratorium to be appropriate pending a better definition of the privacy legislation.
As stated in the parliamentary question, in fact, "the resolution of the European Parliament of 20 January 2021 on artificial intelligence invited the European Commission to consider introducing a moratorium on the use of these systems by the authorities of the State […] until the technical standards are considered fully compliant with fundamental rights and there will be strict guarantees against improper uses capable of ensuring the necessity and proportionality of the use of these technologies ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/riconoscimento-facciale-come-si-utilizza-il-sari/ on Sat, 06 Mar 2021 16:48:07 +0000.