Defenders and entities take action against facial recognition in the SP subway

The state and federal public defenders’ offices, together with a series of civil society entities, took action to prevent the use of facial recognition technologies by the Metro in São Paulo. The objective is to prevent 4 million passengers traveling through trains and stations from having faces and expressions collected, mapped and monitored.

According to the public bodies and entities involved in the action, the system does not meet the legal requirements set out in the LGPD (General Data Protection Law), in the Consumer Protection Code, in the Public Service Users Code, in the ECA (Child Statute). and Adolescents), in the Federal Constitution and in international treaties.

The LGPD determines that the processing of personal data must respect human rights, dignity and citizenship.

In a note, Metrô states that “the implementation of the system meets the requirements of the General Data Protection Law” and that it will provide all necessary clarifications.

The central part of the lawsuit says that facial recognition increases the risk of discrimination against black, non-binary and trans people, because this type of technology does not have high accuracy and is “immersed in an environment of structural racism”.

According to the action proposed by the entities, even the best algorithms have little precision when performing the recognition of black and transgender people. They are more affected by false positives and false negatives, so they would be more exposed to embarrassment and rights violations.

The entities also question the use of images and data of children and adolescents without the consent of parents or guardians, which would violate the LGPD, the ECA and constitutional protection.

Another issue raised by the action concerns invasion and surveillance. According to the entities, the United States and Europe have restricted the massive use of this type of technology for these reasons.​

As for the Metro, in addition to stating that it follows the LGPD, it says that “the Electronic Monitoring System (SME3) does not have the citizen’s facial recognition or any personification or database formation with personal information”. “It is exclusively for operational support and service to passengers”, declares the company, in a note.

“With it, it is possible to count passengers, identify objects, monitor unaccompanied children, invade areas such as the way the train passes, lost animals, or monitor the visually impaired through the system, generating alerts in these situations so that employees act quickly”, he adds.

The action proposes that the Justice determine the immediate interruption of facial recognition on its premises and demand the payment of compensation of at least R$ 42 million for collective moral damages.

Also contacted through its press office, the Metropolitan Transport Department did not comment on the action until the report was published.