Facial Recognition & Law Enforcement in the EU is a comparative legal research project mapping the national rules governing the use of facial recognition technologies by law enforcement authorities across the 27 Member States of the European Union.
The project asks:
Under what legal conditions may law enforcement authorities use facial recognition technologies in the EU Member States?
The tracker does not seek to catalogue every known deployment of facial recognition technology. Its primary object is the legal framework governing its use.
The project therefore focuses on the legislative and normative measures through which Member States authorise, prohibit, restrict, condition or otherwise regulate facial recognition for law enforcement purposes.
The geographical scope covers the 27 EU Member States.
EU law is used as the common legal reference point against which national measures are identified and compared. The tracker does not reproduce the AI Act as though it were a national measure. Instead, it records how national law interacts with, supplements or gives effect to the relevant provisions of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689.
The project currently does not cover:
Subnational measures may nevertheless be discussed within a country page where they materially affect the national legal framework.
The tracker covers national legislation and other normative measures governing facial recognition technologies used for law enforcement purposes.
Its principal categories are:
Systems in which biometric capture, comparison and identification take place instantaneously, near-instantaneously or without significant delay.