MEPs in the European Parliament have voted in favour (by 377-248) to ban automated facial recognition in public spaces in the European Union.
In a resolution MEPs also asked for a ban on private facial recognition databases, like the ones used by Clearview AI.
The Parliament also supports the European Commission's attempt in its AI bill to ban social scoring systems, such as the ones launched by China that rate citizens' trustworthiness based on their behaviour.
The resolution states that "those subject to AI-powered systems must have recourse to remedy."
Under EU law, according to the document, "a person has the right not to be subjected to a decision which produces legal effects concerning them or significantly affects them and is based solely on automated data processing."
The approval of the resolution follows similar calls by EU data protection regulators this summer. The European Data Protection Board and the European Data Protection Supervisor said the EC should ban AI systems from using biometrics to categorise people "into clusters based on ethnicity, gender, political or sexual orientation," or any other classifications that could lead to discrimination.