The grey-zones of public-private surveillance: Policy tendencies of facial recognition for public security in Brazilian cities

Abstract

The provision of biometric surveillance systems in cities' administration in Brazil is commonly delegated to private companies, where businesses supply facial recognition technologies (FRTs) to law enforcement entities. These public-private partnerships often manifest a lack of transparency, while counting on the legitimacy of the public administration to offer public services. These regulatory "grey-zones" affect smart city policies in Brazil, sidelining civil society and researchers, while narratives of efficiency push ahead the digitalisation of public services without proper safeguards. In Brazil, the collaborative work of civil society before the courts and government authorities has been the most successful path in halting FRTs in the area of public security, establishing strategic precedents that discursively focus on the "right to the city". This paper aims to achieve three goals: 1) shed light on these governance grey zones in order to identify the particularities of public-private models employed in the Brazilian socio-economic context; 2) examine the Brazilian human rights' organisations' attitudes towards the use of FRTs; and 3) provide a set of resilient principles that must guide biometric surveillance policies at the city level. Issue 1This paper is part of Future-proofing the city: A human rights-based approach to governing algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Alina Wernick and Anna Artyushina.

Constructing smart cities through the use of public-private partnerships: The case of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates

“…The regulatory landscape for smart cities is still evolving, presenting challenges in ensuring adequate safeguards for data protection. Different jurisdictions may have varying approaches to privacy regulations, complicating matters for global smart city deployments (Ramiro and Cruz, 2023). The absence of standardized frameworks and clear ethical guidelines can lead to disparate practices in data handling and privacy protection.…”

Future-proofing the city: A human rights-based approach to governing algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies

“…He arrives at the conclusion that the data protection law and the AI Act proposal do not offer sufficient safeguards for fundamental rights risks associated with facial recognition and its disproportionate use in policing. The deployment of facial recognition technologies in policing is further addressed in the article by Ramiro and Cruz (2023), who focus on the role of public-private partnerships in technology governance. In technology regulation, not all jurisdictions follow the European fundamental-rights-driven route.…”

“…In technology regulation, not all jurisdictions follow the European fundamental-rights-driven route. Analysing the "grey zones of surveillance" executed by private companies, Ramiro and Cruz (2023) show how consumer protection law, and methods more closely connected to the HRBA in cities, strategic litigation and activism, have helped to limit the adoption of facial recognition technology in Brazil.…”

“…First, the implementation of HRBA-by-design in policy frameworks is a working tool that helps protect individual, collective and public interests in our rapidly digitised and automated cities (see Hacker & Neyer, 2023;Lane, 2023a). Second, the HRBA in cities approach may serve as a means to protect fundamental rights that do not offer HRBA by design protections similar to the GDPR (see Ramiro & Cruz, 2023). Third, implementing HRBA at the design stage can help develop technological tools that actually serve the needs of citizens (see Wernick et al, 2023;Tupasela et al, 2023).…”

“…As showcased by Tupasela et al (2023), Ramiro & Cruz (2023) and Christofi's (2023) articles, HRBA by design and HRBA in cities are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. HRBA by design approaches, both in its risk-based and proactive forms, belong to the toolbox of HRBA in cities (UN-Habitat, 2022).…”