Czech Police Discontinue Airport Facial Recognition System After Digital Rights Criticism
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Summary
Czech police have shut down a facial recognition system at Prague's Václav Havel Airport after years of criticism from digital rights groups. The system, operational since 2018, used real-time facial recognition to compare travelers' biometric data against databases of wanted or missing persons. The shutdown in August 2025 followed sustained advocacy by European Digital Rights (EDRi) member IuRe, which had raised legal concerns about biometric data processing since 2021.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledThe Czech Republic Police used a camera system with facial recognition capabilities at Václav Havel Airport in Prague from 2018, until it was shut down in August 2025.
The system enabled real-time recognition of the faces of people passing through the airport.
Their so-called bio-indexes, or, simply put, facial contours converted into numbers, were compared with a database of wanted or missing persons.
EDRi member IuRe drew attention to the situation back in 2021. At the time, IuRe lawyers argued that the processing of biometric data in Czech...
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