Real-time means that the system capture s and further process es biometric data ‘instantaneously, near-instantaneously or in any event without any significant delay.’191 All the processing steps, i.e. the capture, comparison, and identification of biometric data, occur simultaneously or almost simultaneously, which may include a ‘limited short delay’ to avoid the prohibition being circumvented through the retrospective use of RBI systems.192 The notion of ‘without a significant delay’ is not definedin the AI Act; it will have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. As the devices used for real-time or post-remote identification are increasingly one and the same with differ ent functionalities, the distinction is temporal. Generally speaking, a delay is significant at least when the person is likely to have left theplace where the biometric data was taken.
Real-time systems in general are used at a given place to facilitate a quick reaction and not to retrospectively identify persons.They provide the user of the system with a means to track the movements of persons under surveillance and to monitor them. a) An AI system screens all incoming visitors to a concert venue: Real-time RBI b) A system films all incoming visitors to a concert. An incident happens at the concert. After the concert, the identification system is operated on the video material in order to identify the offender: Post-RBI.
When a law enforcement authority covertly takes a picture of a person via a mobile device and submits it to a database for immediate search, depending on the circumstances, this may fall under the prohibition of Article 5(1)(h) AI Act.