Yesterday (December 17th, 2019), Cornelia Kutterer, Senior Director, EU Government Affairs, AI & Privacy, and Digital Policies at Microsoft, has been in Madrid, at FIDE Foundation, talking about the latest advances in facial recognition technology and the possibilities and risks that its use represents.

During the session at FIDE, Cornelia was introduced by Vicente Moret, attorney to the Spanish Parliament, the attendees included by relevant stakeholders of civil society, industry and public administration. In particular: senior members of the Spanish DPA, the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Presidency, Bank of Spain and members of the Spanish Senate.

The audience was very interested to understand the need for FRT regulation and Cornelia brilliantly responded for an hour+ very relevant questions, relative to our principles, the trustworthiness of tech companies when providing tools to enterprises and governments, the competition on FRT with China, the Tokyo project (with seeing AI), the recent case from the UK and the criteria defined in the resolution that could be the grounds for future regulation and the merits of having additional regulation considering that GDPR already provides a framework for the use of FRT.

It has become clear that it is crucial to open a debate that analyzes the risks and opportunities of facial recognition and governments should take the lead in adopting laws to regulate this technology.

In her own words “We have put in place our own principles, but we also believe that we need rules in place. Moreover, I believe that we need to strengthen the democratic understanding of this technology”