A FULL-TIME “privacy tsar” should be created to safeguard Scots against potentially invasive technology such as fingerprint scanners and facial recognition cameras, campaigners have said.
Alistair Duff, professor of information policy at Edinburgh Napier University and a member of the NO2ID Edinburgh campaign group, made the call as MSPs consider appointing an independent biometrics commissioner for Scotland.
He hit out at the “increasing deployment of biometric technology” and the use of facial recognition cameras by the police.
He said: “Scanning every face in a crowd and matching it against a central database, such technology is clearly ‘Orwellian’.
“It violates the fundamental right to privacy in public, calling into question the whole liberal-democratic conception of the relationship between the individual and the state.
“Anyone inclined to dismiss us as alarmist should simply look up what has already happened in one notorious police-state: China.”
There have been growing concerns over the use of biometric data, which can cover everything from facial recognition to DNA samples and fingerprints.
Legislation introduced to Holyrood earlier this year would see the creation of an independent biometrics commissioner, tasked with overseeing the acquisition, retention, use and destruction of biometric data for policing and criminal justice purposes.
However, campaigners insist this does not go far enough.
Professor Duff said NO2ID Edinburgh is “sympathetic to the proposal” but “remain concerned that such a post will fail to meet the broader threat to privacy and individual rights”.
In a written submission to Holyrood’s Justice Committee, he said this concern is exacerbated by the fact the post will only be part-time.
He said: “We suggest, therefore, that instead of a part-time biometrics commissioner, a full-time Scottish privacy commissioner be created, whose remit would include all current and future aspects of data protection north of the border. This would include biometrics, but also other types of personal information.
“We are of the opinion that only a full-time ‘privacy tsar’, operating completely separately from the Westminster information commissioner and their agent in Scotland, can reassure the Scottish public that privacy will be protected as a fundamental right, going forward. A full-timer championing personal privacy in its entirety would be better value-for-money than a part-timer confined to one particular technology."
The Open Rights Group, a grassroots campaigning organisation working to protect the right to privacy and free speech online, also called for the legislation to go further.
It insisted the commissioner should oversee the use of biometric data by public authorities and private actors, as well as the police.
The Scottish Human Rights Commission echoed this, and also called for the commissioner to be handed enforcement powers.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “While technological advances in biometrics have brought huge benefits to police and other justice agencies in detecting, preventing and prosecuting crime in Scotland’s communities their use clearly raises a number of ethical and human rights considerations.
“We are determined to ensure that the approach to biometric data used for the purposes of policing and criminal justice in Scotland is not only lawful but both effective and ethical."
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