Police may use facial recognition despite criticism from AP, Yeşilgöz says

The police must be able to make more use of facial recognition and other technology to track people. This was said by the Dutch outgoing Minister of Justice Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius. The Dutch Data Protection Authority criticized the plans earlier this year.

The police have been experimenting with additional use of facial recognition since mid-2023, including in a case in which a suspect's face was automatically compared with seized footage. Nieuwsuur wrote this earlier this year. The police had received permission from Minister Yeşilgöz for this. However, according to the AP, there is no specific legislation for this, which worried the regulator at the time.

In response, MP Joost Sneller of the D66 party submitted questions to the House in January about the use of the software. In it, he asked Yeşilgöz to respond to the AP's position that there is no legal basis for using the technology. Yeşilgöz also had to indicate whether the police should stop the use until there is clarity about the legal basis.

Yeşilgöz answered those questions on Monday. The outgoing minister does not agree with the AP. “In the Nieuwsuur item referred to, the spokesperson for the Dutch Data Protection Authority states that there is currently no explicit legal basis for the use of facial recognition. However, this does not mean that there is no legal basis for the application of technology by the police and that the actions of the police do not comply with the principle of legality,” says the outgoing minister. When asked by Sneller whether the police should discontinue the use until there is clarity about the legal basis, Sneller answers Yeşilgöz that she “does not share this view.” “The legal basis and guarantees can be found, among other things, in the Police Act 2012 and the Police Data Act. For example, the Police Data Act contains provisions on the processing of special police data, such as biometric data with a view to the unique identification of a natural person ”, said Yeşilgöz.