London’s new rules for developers of new public spaces must ban the use of facial recognition cameras, according to Sian Berry, Green London Assembly member and mayoral candidate.
Since 2016, Sian has worked with campaigners to win new policies from the mayor to stop arbitrary rules being imposed in new public squares.
“The freedom to sit, socialise and exercise free speech in public spaces is so important,’ states Berry, ‘but it is being eroded every time a new public space is created, and developers ban activities like playing, protesting or simply being homeless. We have also seen the even more sinister practice of private CCTV fitted with facial recognition being used on us without consent.”
In 2017 the London Assembly passed a motion proposed by Sian for new planning policies to fix these problems when new spaces are planned, but, Berry stresses, “We have waited more than three years for the mayor to produce the policy he promised.”
Sian is calling on the mayor to make this happen. “I know how important freedom and civil liberties are to Londoners and I hope many of you will join me and call on the mayor to make this policy stronger and to ban facial recognition in private CCTV systems in the new public spaces it will control.”