‘Automated Facial Recognition Technology: Recent Developments and Approaches to Oversight’ by Monique Mann and Marcus Smith in (2017) 40(1)
University of New South
Wales Law Journal comments
There has been a rapid expansion in the type and volume of information
collected for security purposes following
the terrorist attacks on the United States
of America (‘US’) on 11 September 2001. This event has been described as
precipitating a program of
‘globalized surveillance’.
New technology, biometric
identification and other developments such as metadata retention can provide
governments with an increasingly comprehensive picture of citizens’ lives. This
has resulted in a rapidly expanding use of human biometric information in law
enforcement investigations and other applications.
The first part of this article
describes Automated Facial Recognition Technology (‘AFRT’) and its law
enforcement and border security applications, as well as integration
with image
sources such as closed circuit television (‘CCTV’), social media and big data.
Recent developments including biometric identification documents (licences and
passports) and information sharing arrangements that promote searching between
state, territory and national government databases to facilitate a national facial
recognition system will be discussed. These developments are reviewed against
the backdrop of tension between individual privacy rights and collective security
objectives. The second part of the article examines existing privacy protections,
law enforcement exemptions, and regulatory options based on an international
review of current oversight models. As is often the case in relation to
technological advancements, government regulation and the legal system have
lagged behind, and potential regulatory approaches have not been adequately
discussed in either public debate or the academic literature.
In the absence of a
constitutional bill of rights or a cause of action for serious invasion of privacy in
Australia, there are limited protections in relation to biometric information, and
those that do exist, such as protections provided by the
Privacy Act 1988
(Cth),
are subject to exemptions. This has led to a significant governance gap. In order
to align with international regulatory practices, the functions and funding of the
Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (‘OAIC’) should be
strengthened or, alternatively, a Biometrics Commissioner should be introduced.
