A/HRC/44/24 targeted surveillance and tracking of participants. Faulty live identification may also lead to undue interventions in peaceful assemblies by security forces. The negative effects of the use of facial recognition technology on the right of peaceful assembly can be far-reaching, as United Nations human rights experts have pointed out.73 Many people feel discouraged from demonstrating in public places and freely expressing their views when they fear that they could be identified and suffer negative consequences.74 35. Audiovisual recording and facial recognition techniques should only be used when such measures meet the three-part test of legality, necessity and proportionality. The possibility that recourse to facial recognition technology during peaceful protests could ever meet the test of necessity and proportionality, given its intrusiveness and serious chilling effects, has been questioned.75 Authorities should generally refrain from recording assembly participants. As required by the need to show proportionality, exceptions should only be considered when there are concrete indications that serious criminal offences are actually taking place or that there is cause to suspect imminent and serious criminal behaviour, such as violence or the use of firearms. Existing recordings should only be used for the identification of assembly participants who are suspects of serious crimes.76 36. While the use of facial recognition technology in the context of peaceful assemblies is discouraged, governments that still deploy this technology should ensure that they do so on a clear legal basis, including a robust, human rights-compliant regulatory framework. In addition, the authorities that continue to use audiovisual recording and facial recognition techniques should put in place a regulatory framework that contains provisions effectively protecting personal data, including with regards to facial images and the data derived from them. Measures should provide for the immediate deletion of all data, except for the specific segments that may be necessary for the conduct of criminal investigations and the prosecution of violent crimes. All persons concerned should have the right to access and to request the rectification and expungement of such information that is stored without a legitimate purpose and a legal basis, except when this would frustrate criminal investigations or prosecutions for which these data are needed.77 37. Furthermore, any use of audiovisual recording and facial recognition technology must be subject to robust and well-resourced oversight mechanisms. While part of the oversight can be carried out by independent and impartial data protection authorities, States should consider additional measures, including the involvement of an independent body, preferably of a judicial nature, in charge of authorizing the use of facial recognition technology measures in an assembly context. In any case, any use of recording and facial recognition technology should be open to judicial challenge. In all circumstances, the authorities should be transparent about the use of recording and facial recognition technology and always notify members of the public when they are, or may be, recorded and/or when their images may be processed in a facial recognition system. 78 38. A welcome approach is that of a number of cities, which have already adopted bans and moratoriums on government use of facial recognition technology. 79 Despite serious concerns about the adverse human rights impact of facial recognition technology, however, police forces in several countries continue to use these technologies as regular policing tools in the context of peaceful assemblies, often with weak regulatory frameworks and oversight, or with none at all. This is a worrying trend, which may result in public spaces being systematically kept under surveillance by cameras and facial recognition technology. States should consistently conduct human rights due diligence not only before deploying facial 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 10 A/HRC/31/66, para. 76, and CCPR/C/CHN-MAC/CO/1, para. 16. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, “Facial recognition technology: fundamental rights considerations in the context of law enforcement” (Vienna, 2020), p. 20; contributions of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights and the Association for Monitoring Equal Rights. See also A/HRC/31/66, para. 76; and OSCE/ODIHR, Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, para. 172. FRA study, p. 34. OSCE/ODIHR, Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, para. 172. A/HRC/39/29, paras. 27–33. A/HRC/31/66, para. 78. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/why-we-should-ban-facial-recognition-technology.html.