A new report by investigative group Disclose reveals that police in France are using smartphones equipped with facial recognition technology to access sensitive records during routine identity checks, in what critics say is a breach of French law.
The investigation, published this week, claims officers are using police-issued mobile devices to search for people in a restricted database using only their photo.
The technology has been available to police since 2022 and gendarmes since 2020, according to Interior Ministry documents seen by Disclose.
The newsroom spoke to people in France's three largest cities – Paris, Marseille and Lyon – who said they had been photographed and identified by police in the past four years, in some cases without their consent.
Facial matching software installed on the devices allows police to identify individuals by cross-referencing their image with the criminal records database (TAJ), which holds millions of photos. The database contains information not only on people accused of offences, but also about victims and missing persons.
According to official procedure, only authorised police officers are supposed to access the database, and only when investigating an offence. Consulting it unlawfully is punishable by a fine or even prison time.
Yet Disclose obtained documents from France's police oversight body, the IGPN, that state officers "very frequently" open the database during identity checks – and raise concerns that access via smartphones will only increase the number of unjustified searches.
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'Illegal surveillance'
France lacks a comprehensive legal framework regulating the use of facial recognition, says digital rights group La Quadrature du Net, which has sounded the alarm over unchecked use of the technology before.
In response to the latest revelations, it accused the Interior Ministry of knowingly organising "abusive and illegal surveillance".
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Current French law only expressly authorises real-time facial recognition as part of investigations of serious crimes or during automated passport scans at border checkpoints.
While the country approved the use of artificial intelligence-powered video surveillance in the run-up to the Paris Olympics, legislators have remained more cautious about allowing widespread facial scans.
Limited experiments have taken place locally – notably in Nice, which was the first city to trial the technology when it scanned the faces of thousands of volunteers attending its carnival in 2019.
France's data protection watchdog, CNIL, has repeatedly warned against privacy risks. Last year, a proposal to ban facial recognition was submitted to parliament, but has not yet been passed.
