Finland has come out with a plan to expand the use of biometric data, with a new a new proposal from the country’s Interior Ministry.
Even as the push to introduce various forms of advanced biometric surveillance, including that incorporating facial recognition, is gaining momentum in countries around the world – so is the pushback from civil rights and privacy campaigners, which ensures that such initiatives these days rarely fly under the radar.
Finland’s Interior Ministry announced on its website that the proposal aims to amend existing rules on biometric data stored by the police and the immigration service – stored, that is, in Finnish citizens’ ID cards, and registers containing biometric data of foreigners.
The government says the intent is not only to strengthen crime prevention – but also to “improve the conditions for using biometrics in law enforcement.”
In addition to the collection of data captured by facial recognition devices, the proposal includes DNA samples and fingerprints taken from suspects. The process is then to attempt to match this biometric data with other types already contained in the law enforcement’s databases – for “crime prevention and investigative purposes.”
The groups keeping a close eye on this development are warning about some of the issues that crop up time and again around similar legislative efforts: the wording that allows for future “mission creep”- as well as unsatisfactory level of provisions that would guarantee against any abuse of such highly sensitive personal information.
Currently, the Finish proposal is yet to be presented to the lawmakers – the Interior Ministry is seeking comments before this can happen. And while the announcement of the proposal goes into the intent driving it, it is short on detail regarding the elephant in the room – privacy safeguards.
The Ministry’s website says that if amended, the biometric data regulation “could” be at the disposal of law enforcement in order to “prevent significant danger to life, health or freedom and to prevent, uncover and investigate the most serious crimes.”
The proposal is something of a masterclass in vague wording – so many things can fit just into defining a danger as “significant” – and such broad categories like, “freedom.”
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