As the rollout of the facial recognition surveillance system intensifies and concerns grow over misuse and the invasion of privacy, the government says there should be no fear and that legislation is coming.
“Legislation will have to be passed in Parliament to entrench safeguards concerning the use of facial technology. I remember requesting from the AG’s office that legislative pre-cedents in other, especially Commonwealth, countries be used to draft our law here. The reason was that indeed facial recognition technology can be a serious threat to privacy and can possibly result in errors which can implicate innocent people, and the manipulation that can occur by bad actors,” former APNU+AFC Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan told the Sunday Stabroek.
Echoing his concerns was former APNU+AFC Minister of Citizenship and Commissioner of Police Winston Felix who said that knowing the law is there to protect from abuse would provide a form of relief to citizens.
“It can be abused. Legislation to protect citizens ought to be devised and passed in parliament …you cannot have a power tool like that in the hands of (just) anybody,” Felix told this newspaper.
“We need laws to ensure the use of it is not abused. So whether Brickdam [Police Station], Eve Leary [Police Headquarters] or New Garden Street [Office of the President], there must be laws to control the use of it and to protect citizens. It is good if you are protecting a building that you have the facial recognition but to have it open and you driving your car and this thing is on tracking you as you do your private business, knowing they can take it and use it, there must be safeguards,” he added.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC says that government notes the concern but is assuring that there are no sinister plans for the use of the data collected and that the public should know that legislation is already being looked at.
He said that a surveillance system has already been rolled out at traffic lights and there has been no incident of abuse. He said that should be indicative that government has no interest in the personal data of persons.
“It is a measure already implemented in many countries. Yes, we must have a legislative framework that will regulate it to ensure that it is not misused and the data and images generated are kept confidential. This is a crime-fighting measure that will be administered and executed by the Guyana Police Force not the government. The data generated will not be available to the government. I don’t think that is a concern that should be used seriously,” Nandlall contended.
Don’t subscribe
“Any initiative that one implements with the best of intentions can be misused. I don’t subscribe to the argument that because of that possibility which might be minimal that the measures should not be implemented. I know of no perfect system. Flying has the risk that you can fall out the sky, but seriously you have to ensure that the system works for the public good and that is what our government intends to do. Yes, we already have CCTV generated …relating to speeding and ticketing and there is legislation that governs it. It was unanimously passed and so far I have not heard the sky is falling. There was no use of the images to shame anybody. I don’t know that there has been any abuse of that information,” he added.
The Attorney General said that not only will there be legislation for data protection but that there will be strong penalties for those that attempt to, or misuse the system they are manning. “Penalties for those will be strong for those whenever there is an abuse or misuse of data by persons,” he stated.
In January of this year, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo revealed the government’s intention to introduce a biometric project which will allow the authorities to use facial recognition software. This software, he said, will be used to track people with criminal records and pinpoint their exact location at any given time. Jagdeo added that the soon-to-be constructed 12-storey Brickdam Police Station, which will be the “nerve centre” for crime fighting across the country, will assist in bolstering Guyana’s security plan.
In August 2019, when Ramjattan was then Public Security Minister he had dismissed privacy concerns over the use of facial recognition and tracking technology as part of the CCTV Surveillance system, saying that he saw no risk of the system being abused.
He told this newspaper last week that as Minister he “gave every support to the Huawei project which was implemented in the Coalition Government with a wide-screen at Liliendaal being watched by a dozen or more persons.”
Additionally, he said that he supports the PPP/C Government’s project which will see Brickdam Police Station being the nerve centre with improved facilities and technology to fight crime through the use of facial recognition technology, but in the same vein still emphasizes that legislation needs to be passed for protection of persons.
He said that he had been told by British Security Sector Reform Adviser, Russell Combe, “that there can be technical flaws in the equipment themselves.”
Colour
“Being something that use artificial intelligence and a lot more intelligence capabilities, which clearly was beyond me, he had indicated that the technology was susceptible at identifying people of colour. This had to do with the training of the machines and so on. But these misidentifications were not significant when compared to the benefits,” he added.
Notwithstanding these risks and challenges, Ramjattan said that the decision for their use was “supported by my Ministry and the entire Cabinet.”
“I have to say that it will always be challenging knowing the security benefits as against the privacy and liberty detriments. But a call had to be made. And I made it to go ahead without passing legislation before implementation,” he added.
He said that he had read a recent editorial in Stabroek News on the matter and he supports even more now the need for legislation in view of a widening of usage.
For Guyana’s Attorney General, he hopes when the public analyzes the measure they do so holistically and from a standpoint knowing that it is just part of a plan and commitment “to modernize every aspect of the architecture of Guyana.”
“Technology is now very advanced, and available and wherever possible the government will use information… and technology to advance this modernization. In this regard, …almost every one of these initiatives requires us to create a regulatory framework that will govern how these initiatives once implemented must function. Invariably, this regulatory framework, will manifest itself in the enactment of laws and subsidiary legislation, to ensure that these policy directives are achieved while at the same time there are sufficient safeguards, to protect them from abuse and to protect the rights and freedoms of Guyanese where necessary. Against this backdrop for example we have enacted an e-commerce … act to permit every legal transaction, legal or commercial transaction that can be done lawfully, to be done electronically. So a contract can now be executed with one party being in Guyana and the other party being in another country. It allows for transactions to be done paperlessly, it allows for the use of signatures etcetera,” he explained.
He continued, “Similarly, our data protection legislation allows for the collection of personal data of every citizen, stored in a central secure database and use of it in the interest of the public. For example the storage of your medical records. The storage of all the necessary documents that you need to conduct your business, you NIS, Your TIN and other such information. Medical instructions for example can have access to your medical history when it becomes necessary. Naturally, the law has a strong regime of protection in respect of this private data, ensuring that it is not to be used for an unauthorized or illegal purpose. We have the resident card legislation that allows for the issuance of a singular card that will contain several fields of information regarding its holder which can be used to conduct multiple transactions both in public and private sector.”
Nandlall also made reference to the single window system. “Again which has a legislation to govern it. This system intends to facilitate the expeditious processing of buildings permissions, building plans, public health approvals, environmental permissions from the fire service and a host of other agencies, which are required when one is constructing a building, both in the city and outside of the city. It is an undisputed fact that these building permissions and other approvals take years to be processed leading to tremendous frustration, hardship and economic and financial loss to the applicant,” he said.
“In all these new initiatives, there are protections enshrined in the various legislation which protects issues such as privacy confidentiality, personal rights against misuse and abuse. It is important that I emphasize that these systems are already in place in many advanced countries in the world. They are also present in some CARICOM countries as well,” he added.
