New project envisions biometric AI futures

The Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling will be undertaking a new project that examines future uses of biometric artificial intelligence systems in law enforcement.

Led by Dr Lachlan Urquhart, Senior Lecturer in Technology Law and Human-Computer Interaction and Co-Director of the SCRIPT Centre at Edinburgh Law School with Dr Diana Miranda, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Stirling, the project will explore the emerging state of the art in biometric AI systems.

The project team, which also includes Dr Alex Laffer, and Dr Irena Connon, will focus on mapping different socio-technical and legal issues raised by these systems. This will inform the development of a series of design fictions that will help to envision future uses of biometric AI with academics, government, and police. This provides a creative methodology to reflect on the resulting regulatory, ethical, technical and societal implications of biometric AI use at scale.

Dr Urquhart states: “The proposed EU AI Act is establishing stricter regulations around high risk AI systems and there are calls to prohibit some biometric AI applications, such as police use of live facial recognition in public spaces. Recently, the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner released their Code of Practice to guide criminal justice uses of biometric data. So, it is an interesting time to look at the range of challenges posed by emerging biometric AI systems, such as emotion recognition.”

For further information, please contact Dr Lachlan Urquhart. The work is funded by the EPSRC Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub.