ECNL, Article 19, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, on behalf of the CSO Coalition on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, in collaboration with the Special Rapporteur on the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism, Professor Fionnuala Ni Aolain and the Mission of Germany to the UN, organised a virtual event on "Upholding Human Rights in Regulation and Use of Biometrics Technology in Counter-Terrorism Law and Practice".
This event convened national and international organisations from a global CSO Coalition working on counter-terrorism issues, UN bodies, and Member States to explore how biometrics are used in counter-terrorism efforts and what their impact is on human rights. The session highlighted examples of how human rights safeguards can be integrated, reviewed existing standards, and stimulated discussion around areas where further standard strengthening may be needed.
Outcomes and key messages include:
- Need for increased understanding of the use of biometric data in counter-terrorism, including through automation, diverse machine learning algorithms, and artificial intelligence, and its implications for human rights norms and civil society actors. Presentations emphasized facial analysis technologies, and examples including the use of facial recognition to surveil the Uyghur community in Xinjiang or at the border separating Israel from Palestine, and emotion recognition.
- Recommendations to States and to the United Nations to strengthen human rights safeguards for the use of biometric data tools. Emphasis was given to the rights of those most at-risk when using biometric-driven technology for counter-terrorism purposes, such as racial, ethnic, and religious minorities; refugees and migrants; and those living in conflict zones.
- Deeper awareness of the “function creep” aspect of biometric technologies and their role in shrinking civic space worldwide, particularly as they adversely impact freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression, right to protest, and privacy. For example, the event highlighted how biometric tools are repurposed from national security and counter-terrorism to emergency measures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasized the negative impact on human rights and civic space from this trend. The impacts on historically at-risk groups, such as human rights defenders, political dissidents, and journalists, among others, were also discussed.
- Necessity for increased civil society participation in policymaking related to counter-terrorism, and the use of biometrics in particular, and how this fits into the review and the implementation of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy.
- Elaborated on the role of technology companies in preventing and mitigating adverse human rights impacts when designing, developing or deploying biometrics technologies for counter-terrorism purposes.
See the video recording of the event below.