The Justice of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires maintains the suspension of the use of the Fugitive Facial Recognition System (
SRFP
) after a hearing with specialists and representatives of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security determined that there
is still no agreement on how to audit this technology.
It is an artificial intelligence that, for many experts, has problems that have led to erroneous arrests and is questioned in terms of privacy and guarantees in various countries.
The system, implemented to detect and identify fugitives from Justice and criminals in 2019, demonstrated its shortcomings when a citizen spent almost a week in prison because he was confused with a criminal who had the same name, Guillermo Ibarrola.
At the end of last year, the issue was again on the agenda, this time nationally, when the Government of Javier Milei aimed to implement this technology to identify protesters and penalize them with the withdrawal of social plans.
Starting from a request for access to public information made in 2019 by the Computer Law Observatory of Argentina (ODIA), and then an action for protection, a series of legal processes were also pushed by the
Center for Legal Studies and (CELS)
and the
Vía Libre Foundation
that led to the suspension of the use of facial recognition in Buenos Aires territory, developed by the software company
Danaide SA
Two weeks ago, a hearing tried to define how the system was going to be audited, without reaching an agreement, moving to an intermediate room and making the decision to maintain its block.
Here, what the system implies, what risks it represents and
what the Buenos Aires Government explains to justify its reactivation.
How facial recognition is used in the City
This is how the facial recognition system for fugitives works.
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Facial recognition technology is based on verifying a person's identity based on their facial features.
For this, unique characteristics such as the shape of the nose, the distance of the eyes or the shape of the cheekbones are analyzed.
“Facial recognition is understood as that technology that allows the identification or verification, through an automated process, of a person through an image, video or any audiovisual element of their face,” María Luján Gallego,
lawyer
and specialist in Data Protection of the Brons & Salas Studio.
It has various uses, from some everyday ones such as applications such as Mercado Pago, where the aim is to validate an identity (in the case of these applications, as more robust security measures than a password or PIN).
At the state level, its use has to do with
“preventing the commission of crimes,
verifying whether a person has a criminal record or verifying, in the event of the commission of a crime, whether the person or group of people have had an influence in the act in question. ”Adds Gallego.
At the entrances to stadiums, for example, a type of system is used for what is known as Safe Grandstand 2.0, which aims to prevent the entry of people with criminal records.
Clarín consulted the City Government about how this SRFP technology works on Buenos Aires soil.
“The technology used for facial recognition that analyzes images from a public database called CONARC (National Consultation of Rebellions and Captures) is managed by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of the Nation, or by direct order of a competent judicial authority. .
This base is updated daily and contains records of people of legal age who are being sought by justice,” they explained.
The use, they argue, is largely justified by the results: “At the time of being suspended, the Fugitive Facial Recognition System had managed to detect, circulating freely through the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, 1743 fugitives - on a national basis of approximately 40 thousand, including those accused of homicide, robbery and different types of sexual abuse, among other crimes.”
As they explain, “only upon detecting a coincidence with CONARC, the Urban Monitoring Center issues an alert, generating a service letter and notifying police personnel to intervene.
In addition, it should be noted that the system is governed by the legislation that regulates the City's Comprehensive Public Security System and is subject to audits by the Ombudsman's Office," they added, in addition to a commission of the Legislature also being part of the system control process.
This audit is the point of discrepancy between these three civil society organizations that prevents the system from being used today: “The use of this technology without the appropriate regulatory framework could violate
or violate very personal rights of citizens
, such as that of privacy, equality or discrimination,” Gallego warned.
Who controls the system?
System parameters, under discussion.
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The situation of the citizen detained due to a system error in Bahía Blanca serves as a test case that this technology can malfunction, leading to the deprivation of liberty of an innocent citizen, or that the system can have biases that harm the population.
The point of the organizations that oppose it has to do with this: audit it to know exactly how this software works and how it is made.
In a true odyssey, Federico Ibarrola was returning from Tigre and upon arriving at the Retiro train station the police captured him, after the facial recognition system of the Buenos Aires city government identified him as the fugitive from a violent robbery committed in Bahía Blanca three years ago.
“Instead of uploading the data of Guillermo Federico Ibarrola who had been identified as a suspect by a witness, those of this man who is a namesake were uploaded,” judicial sources had explained at that time.
“A detailed study must be carried out with the intervention of all sectors that may be involved in order to protect the rights of all parties that will be involved in the implementation of the system in question.
Evaluate risks, benefits and implications of its implementation, implement the necessary means so that the population is aware of this new tool to be used.
We must not lose sight of the individual rights of citizens,
which cannot be violated by the State
,” warns Gallego.
Due to this type of cases, the Administrative Litigation judge of the City of Buenos Aires, Elena Liberatori, declared the unconstitutionality of the operation of the SRFP implemented by the Buenos Aires Government in September 2022, something confirmed by Chamber I of the Chamber of Appeals, which sent everything to the first instance to insist on its audit to
rule out racial, ethnic or gender biases.
In this context, the hearing two weeks ago had the two parties facing each other: the Buenos Aires Government asking that the system be reactivated on the one hand, and the civil society entities ODIA, Vía Libre and CELS on the other.
From the Ministry of Security of the City they assured this medium that they are "at the disposal of Judge Liberatori from the first day, working to respond to each of the testing measures that the doctor requested", among them, "making available the software, inform citizens and civil society of the System, collaborate with the technical expertise that will be carried out by experts from the Faculty of Exact Sciences of the UBA and generate a work plan that includes all citizen, judicial, legislative and control that allow the system to be used in order to have a safer City.”
“The Buenos Aires Ministry of Security said that they were available for all audits, so they asked to activate the system and audit it in operation.
That did not succeed, that is, the system is turned off and they cannot turn it back on,” explained Beatriz Busaniche, president of the Vía Libre Foundation, who participated in the hearing.
“There is a House ruling that is firm, which prohibits the use of the facial recognition system until the legal specifications of the 'control' [control] mechanisms are met.
The big problem is who does the audit and how,” added Busaniche.
Current status: suspended until further notice
Security at Retiro Station.
Photo Maxi Failla
The confrontation between the parties means that until there is an audit of the software used and its implementation, the system will remain unused.
“Judge Liberatori did not agree to order the reimplementation of the system through a simple black box audit, which we understand would be insufficient,”
Tomás Pomar, president of ODIA, the entity that initiated the claims in 2019, explained to
Clarín .
A black box audit is a proof of concept for which, without revealing the computer elements of the system, different tests are carried out.
“That is, they don't let you 'see' how it works but they allow you to test that it works.
For us, that may be a standard in the market, but
it is not suitable
for critical technologies used by the State,” criticizes Pomar.
“We celebrate the decision of Justice to raise the level of audit required for this critical technology, we also celebrate the request for an action plan where the
datasets
and the [AI] training model are shared and we believe it is positive that “Stay disconnected,” concluded the lawyer specializing in privacy and citizens' rights.
“The political debate on the subject in Argentina is extremely poor; it is based on the fact that any technology is necessarily positive and useful without evaluating its impact accordingly.
Fortunately, civil society acted in time and justice rose to the occasion, setting limits to defend not only the right to free movement, but with an important note in relation to public purchases made by the state and the obligation to transparency of what it does with our biometric data,” added Busaniche.
In this sense, he characterized the ratification of the blockade of the system as "
strategic at an international and historical level.
It demonstrates that beyond the parliamentary debate on initiatives of this type, compliance with measures to protect rights against the uncritical integration of high-risk technologies”.
The Ombudsman's Office insists with an audit that, at least until February of this year, did not meet the requirements that Justice requests.
After the fourth intermission, the parties agreed to meet to develop a plan that includes an institutional framework, a budget and a clear methodological plan for a real audit of the system.
To date, the parties have not moved forward in this line and the facial recognition system will remain suspended until
a new proposal to audit it is presented to Justice.