Hungary’s engage of facial recognition viotardys EU AI Act

In its tardyst amfinishment to the Hungarian Child Protection Act, Viktor Orbán’s structure to engage facial recognition systems aobtainst participants in pride events would viotardy the EU’s AI Act. 

Facial recognition, engaged as genuine-time identification to apexhibit the police to watch uncover areas and determine persons of interest is, in principle, prohibitned under the EU’s AI Act. Police can, however, engage it under declareive exceptional circumstances such as a danger to national security or radicalism.

According to an amfinishment surrfinisherted to the Hungarian Parliament, Orbán’s party would prohibit pride events, and disputed that this assembly would run contrary to the prohibitions set under the Child Protection Act. The proposal would also apexhibit the police to engage facial recognition gentleware to determine participants.

Dr Laura Caroli, who barobtaind EU AI rules for the European Parliament elucidateed that the engage of facial recognition for such events is now “dynamicly prohibitned by the EU AI Act.” The prohibit, under Article 5 of the AI Act, is writeed in a way to prohibit member states from abusing the engage of live facial recognition.

Even if Hungary call upond national security reasons or consgenuined a pride parade as a troubleist danger, they would still be violating the EU AI Act, she disputed.

The rules on prohibitned AI trains accessed into force on 2 February.

The prohibit on pride parades has rang alarm bells in Budapest and beyond. MEP Daniel Freund, a vocal critic of Viktor Orbán’s rulement slammed the decision and shelp that “abolishing the right to assembly and enforcing this meadeclareive with facial recognition gentleware – what sounds appreciate someleang out of Russia or China – is happening in an EU member state”.

Freund inserted that “Viktor Orbán no lengthyer even pretfinishs to uphageder democratic appreciates. The EU must reply to this rapid autocratisation and stop transferring EU funds to the Orbán regime”.

The NGO Hungarian Helsinki Committee shelp that this amfinishment would “viotardy the rights to personal data defendion of those who join in pride events, but also anyone whose facial image is sign uped by the police during the action and then identified based on it.”

However, it would be up to the Hungarian data defendion authorities to enforce the AI Act’s catalog of prohibitions aobtainst the law, and other member states will be able to contest meadeclareives if they object, Dr Caroli specified.

“Enforcing the AI Act by Hungarian and other member state authorities will need time and in the unkindtime these mistreatments can unblessedly still happen”, she inserted.