The police instals mobile CCTV cameras equipped with AI-based facial recognition technologies on a police van around the main entrance of a football stadium during a European Championship match to secure the area and identify individuals whose faces are re corded in an ad hoc watchlist database of wanted individuals. This watchlist includes persons suspected of having committed a crime (ranging from serious crimes to frauds and burglaries), persons of possible interests for intelligence purposes, and vulnerable persons with mental issues. The police’s use of live facial recognition technologies is not linked to information concerning the presence of a specific person at the event. Although there are likely to be people on the watchlist for the search of whom the use of real-time RBI would be allowed, this list is too unspecific and is not linked to the event of the football match. Such use would therefore be prohibited. A biometric identification system (not remote) verifies whether people have access to anuclear energy plant. When people present themselves in front of the (obvious) camera and access is refused by the system, the system subsequently tries to identify whether the person is on a watchlist of terrorists. The system is not remote. Persons were actively participating in the verification exercise to gain admission to the plant. The use-case does not fall under the prohibition of Article 5 AI Act. The police authorities of a busy city deploy AI-powered CCTV cameras, which can perform live facial recognition technologies. Possibly, different functionalities are being added, such as object detection and crowd movement, on top of facial recognition. They place these cameras at multiple locations, including places of worship, a number of place s frequented by the LGBT+ community, doctors’ offices, pharmacies, and various restaurants and bars. The installation of biometric-ready cameras as such is not prohibited under the AI Act. Certain uses however, including the unspecified and indiscriminate identification of natural persons, is prohibited. Several burglaries occurred in a residential neighbourhood during the summer break. The police obtain a description of the suspectfrom eyewitnesses, who saw the suspect at different moments in the neighbourhood ahead of the burglaries. To identify and arrest the suspect , the police use live facial recognition technology at different locations in the neighbourhood during a weekend. Based on the indications of eyewitnesses, the police created a facial composite of the suspect and extracted several pictures of individuals resembling the facial composite from a custody database. Even if the police use live facial recognition technology against a targeted suspect and have defined a perimeter and t ime of use, the use is not allowed to be deployed in case of an offence, which is not listed in Annex II of the AI Act. The police screens the emotions of fans in a football stadium with a biometric recognition system. The system spots some potential aggression and immediately deploys in that part of the stadium real-time RBI to identify hooligans that were violent in the past. The screening of emotions in the stadium is not prohibited under the AI Act (It still falls under the high-risk category of the AI Act). The application of real-time RBI however would be prohibited under the AI Act, in particular where it is the biometric system that decides upon the necessity to identify the persons for the purposes of law enforcement. The police rel ies on a CCTV network installed in the city and metro to identify a political protestor that organised a collective protest in the streets. In the Member State concerned, organisers of collective protest s held on pu blic roads and public areas, such as streets, must notify the municipal authorities three days in advance of a planned protest to prevent public disorder and violence. The absence of notification is a criminal offence punishable by up to six months imprisonment and a maximum fine of EUR 8 000. To identify the protestor, the police extracts the video feeds from the CCTV cameras ins talled in the streets and perform s retrospective facial recognition by comparing the extracted images with photographs posted on social media. The retrospective use of facial recognition technology is not prohibited by the AI Act. That use is considered high-risk and should comply with the requirements in the AI Act for such systems.243 Further examples of NOT prohibited practices:
- Hotels using real-time RBI to recognise VIP guests. This is not law enforcement.
- Shopping malls using real-time RBI to find shoplifters. This is not law enforcement. Prohibited: Entrusted by the police, a shopping mall is using real-time RBI to find shoplifters. The system is deployed for law enforcement purposes, in a publicly accessible space. The use is prohibited because the search for shoplifters does not fall under any of the exceptions of Article 5(1)(h) AI Act.