In its latest amendment to the Hungarian Child Protection Act, Viktor Orbán’s plan to use facial recognition systems against participants in pride events would violate the EU’s AI Act.
Facial recognition, used as real-time identification to allow the police to monitor public areas and identify persons of interest is, in principle, prohibited under the EU’s AI Act. Police can, however, use it under certain exceptional circumstances such as a threat to national security or terrorism.
According to an amendment submitted to the Hungarian Parliament, Orbán’s party would ban pride events, and argued that this assembly would run contrary to the prohibitions set under the Child Protection Act. The proposal would also allow the police to use facial recognition software to identify participants.
Dr Laura Caroli, who negotiated EU AI rules for the European Parliament explained that the use of facial recognition for such events is now “actively prohibited by the EU AI Act.” The ban, under Article 5 of the AI Act, is drafted in a way to prohibit member states from abusing the use of live facial recognition.
Even if Hungary invoked national security reasons or construed a pride parade as a terrorist threat, they would still be violating the EU AI Act, she argued.
The rules on prohibited AI practices entered into force on 2 February.
The ban on pride parades has rang alarm bells in Budapest and beyond. MEP Daniel Freund, a vocal critic of Viktor Orbán’s government slammed the decision and said that “abolishing the right to assembly and enforcing this measure with facial recognition software – what sounds like something out of Russia or China – is happening in an EU member state”.
Freund added that “Viktor Orbán no longer even pretends to uphold democratic values. The EU must respond to this rapid autocratisation and stop transferring EU funds to the Orbán regime”.
The NGO Hungarian Helsinki Committee said that this amendment would “violate the rights to personal data protection of those who participate in pride events, but also anyone whose facial image is recorded by the police during the action and then identified based on it.”
However, it would be up to the Hungarian data protection authorities to enforce the AI Act’s list of prohibitions against the law, and other member states will be able to oppose measures if they object, Dr Caroli specified.
“Enforcing the AI Act by Hungarian and other member state authorities will require time and in the meantime these abuses can unfortunately still happen”, she added.
