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Survey finds majority of Swiss candidates against automatic facial recognition

Facial recognition technology
A majority of the candidates in the federal elections in October reject automatic facial recognition in public spaces. Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

A majority of the candidates in the federal elections in October reject automatic facial recognition in public spaces. Only the Swiss People’s Party candidates narrowly approve. This is the result of a survey.

Around 80% of the candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate were in favour of a ban on facial recognition in public spaces in the Smartvote survey, as the “Protect fundamental rights – stop facial recognition” alliance of non-governmental organisations announced on Wednesday.

Among the candidates for the House of Representatives, 77.9% said yes or rather yes to a ban, and 83.9% for the Council of States. 52.7% of the House of Representatives and 55.2% of the Senate were clearly in favour of a ban.

+Swiss petition takes aim at face recognition

77.4% of the parliamentarians running for re-election were in favour of the ban, and 75.8% in the Senate. The support ranged from 90% for The Greens to over 60% each for the Radical-Liberal Party and The Centre. Only the Swiss People’s Party candidates were narrowly against a ban, with 51.5%.

+Winterthur police hires first Swiss ‘super recogniser’

The Alliance includes the Swiss section of Amnesty International, Algorithmwatch CH and the Digitale Gesellschaft (digital society). 180 civil society organisations are calling for a worldwide ban on biometric mass surveillance in public spaces.

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