The system of face recognition began to monitor every third Italian

Since the end of 2018 the police of Italy actively use the new system of face recognition of SARI (Automated System for Image Recognition) which cornerstone the database from 16 million photos is. Official representation of development took place in July after eight-months test phase. During tests the technology helped to arrest shoplifters and robbers through the whole country.

However emergence of SARI raised questions concerning its legality. As the former member of parliament and the famous expert in technologies Stefano Quintarelli noted on the Twitter-blge, record set of 16 million persons at the population approximately in 50 million adults corresponds approximately to every third Italian. It is reported that on 9 million photos people whom the police identified only once, on other 7 million — to people who were repeatedly delayed are depicted.

The system of face recognition began to monitor every third Italian

In the official statement the police described a new system as more perfect system interface of AFIS (an automated system of identification of fingerprints) which is used many years and which contains not only fingerprints, but also photos of suspects. Thus a new system is represented just as more effective and fast, than previous and does not pose a threat for private life of citizens. From this also the Italian service on supervision of a compliance with law about personal data protection which in July, 2018 issued the conclusion according to which SARI completely corresponds to the law proceeded.

It is reported also that the SARI system should have two versions. For the beginning of 2019 the first which is based on the existing set of images is used. The second version still should be implemented. She will analyze images of living people from the video cameras located in public places and to compare them to the list of the persons which are of interest to law enforcement agencies.

The lawyer and the employee of the Italian coalition for civil liberties and the right Tommaso Scannicchio emphasized that, forcing people to feel under observation in public places, this system can cause the so-called "holding-down" effect, i.e. "suppression or preventing to legal implementation of natural and legitimate rights threat of legal sanctions".^[1]

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Italy thought of development of a single system of face recognition at the beginning of 2016. Then department charged to Parsec 3.26 company  to develop the corresponding software.

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