News from Zack Polanski: Mayor backs Zack Polanski’s campaign for London spy free shopping list

The Mayor today backed Zack Polanski’s call for transparency in making London a spy free shopping zone.

In a bid to raise awareness of the harms of private companies having access to and storing facial recognition data, Zack Polanski AM has published a list of supermarket retailers in London that do not use live facial recognition.

Zack created this database of shops for Londoners, so they know where they can feel safe when they shop, and where their privacy and data consent is respected.

With supermarkets making up a large part of essential businesses in London during this pandemic, Zack argues it is more important than ever that our data is kept safe while shopping.

Green Party London Assembly Member Zack Polanski said:

It’s not possible to implement facial recognition in an ethical way when there are so few regulations surrounding it.

Access to supermarkets during lockdown has been vital. The lack of alternatives in many communities means people may have no other choice and therefore cannot give valid, unambiguous, and explicit consent to such capture of their sensitive personal data, as required by data protection laws.

Facial recognition use in the private sector would enable the surveillance of drastically higher amounts of people while offering them less legal safeguards.

The technology raises urgent questions around transparency, legality, necessity, and proportionality. Companies refusing to use this are leading the way in protecting people’s privacy.

I am pleased that some major retailers have confirmed they do not use them and hope the remaining will come forward and make clear that sensitive personal data is not stored or shared through facial recognition and allow shoppers a spy-free shopping experience.

The UK GDPR [1] is also clear that people must be able to refuse and withdraw consent without being penalised: “Consent should not be regarded as freely given if the data subject has no genuine or free choice or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment.”