In cooperation with Microsoft we organised, on April 26, 2021, a preliminary high level discussion on the rules for facial recognition and  “remote biometric identification” (RBI) systems which appear in the draft Artificial Intelligence Regulation proposed by the European Commission on April 21. The Report of this workshop is available here, while highlights from this Report have just been published on the European Law Blog. To accompany this Report and analysis, we are posting some useful materials here, specifically a pdf document which includes:

1) A table that we have produced in order to enable an understanding of the facial recognition-related provisions of the draft AI Regulation “at a glance”; and

2) Another, much more detailed table, that we have produced entitled “Facial Recognition-Related Provisions in the EC AI Draft Regulation” for which we have extracted the most important recitals and articles from the Commission’s draft proposal concerning facial recognition (and shown links between the provisions and the relevant recitals). This table also contains the relevant extracts from the explanatory memorandum and an annex which includes the provisions and recitals related to processing of biometric data in existing EU law, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Law Enforcement Directive (LED) .

While these materials are not exhaustive, we hope that they will provide a useful tool for all stakeholders who wish to understand how the draft AI Regulation addresses facial recognition and remote biometric identification, without having to navigate their way through all 123 pages (including the annexes) of the draft regulation.

The Report of the workshop will be posted here shortly.

You can download the Materials here.