Could This Become Europe’s New Normal? Protesters’ Faces May Stay in Databases for Seven Days

A person who attends a concert, raises a banner at a protest or goes to a stadium could one day find their face captured for mass surveillance. Italy has taken a major step toward defining when police may use that technology, and civil-rights groups are alarmed.

The government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni approved a decree aligning Italian law with the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act after exchanging drafts with parliament. The text had not yet been published in the Official Gazette, so its contents were known only through a government briefing note.

Italy is now the first EU country with a detailed legal framework for the exceptions the AI Act leaves open for police use of facial recognition. The EU rules theoretically impose a general ban on police biometric identification, but make exceptions for terrorism, missing people and “serious” crimes. They also leave countries broad room to set out the practical procedures themselves.

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There is nothing to do, starting from the fact that European regulators in one way or another allow governments to act this way. My position is completely against the proposed uses, but we are facing a trend that has been building for years.

The Italian decree distinguishes between two forms of use. Real-time identification would be reserved for serious threats such as terrorism or searches for missing people, with approval from a prosecutor. Retrospective identification could begin only after a crime had been committed, to identify people already flagged as suspects.

The most important change from the first draft concerns events involving “public-order needs”, including squares, stadiums and protests. Police could film and retain images, but facial recognition would no longer automatically scan everyone present. It could be activated only if a crime occurred, with court approval within 24 hours. The data would be deleted after seven days if nothing happened.

Diletta Huyskes, a sociologist at the University of Milan and founder of the Immanence association, said: “There is nothing to do, starting from the fact that European regulators in one way or another allow governments to act this way. My position is completely against the proposed uses, but we are facing a trend that has been building for years.” Spain has no dedicated law on the issue, although a bill on the proper use and governance of AI remains open for amendments in Congress.

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public-order needs