Portugal proposed law tries to sneak in biometric mass surveillance | Hacker News Reader

Portugal proposed law tries to sneak in biometric mass surveillance

reclaimyourface.eu

What are the chances this law actually passes before the assembly is dissolved and there's an election?

The government is a minority government, running the country in a failed coalition. Does it have the votes to ram this through?

There's still a chance as some media are painting it as a good security measure.

In the US, legislation like this is supported by both administration and opposition, the actual danger to it passing is public notice. What you want to do it hide it in emergency legislation that passes on a voice vote in the middle of a group of quick voice votes with no debate.

According to the description by another commenter (who calls this post "pure propaganda"), this seems a lot like that sort of a messy process, and is being deemed necessary in order to enable police body cams (which seems like a wokewashing.)

edit: a sign would be if this legislation as sold as being both so important that it has to be passed now, and so trivial, procedural, and boring that there's no reason to discuss it.

IMHO, the suggestion of wokewashing is off the mark. Here in PT there have been recent instances of police violence, but they were not accompanied by a movement to force police to wear cameras.

The government presented a single law package covering police bodycams, wider surveillance, AI, biometric and police drones. I can only understand this mixing together of disparate issues as a way to diminish public debate and perception around some of them.

The bodycam issue ended up capturing most of the media attention, in part because it involves labour issues, whereas AI or biometrics are much more technical and harder to approach journalistically. I think this is why you find the drive to pass police bodycams -- they're trying to pass a lot of things under the rug, and bodycams just happen to be a convenient talking point to remove focus from others.

Right now, it's still unclear.

Initially, it seemed like a done deal because of the likely support of the major opposition (PSD, centre-right), which has advocated for wider surveillance in other contexts. Its leader also has a history of being strong on policing and surveillance as former mayor of Porto.

However, in the last few days the PSD is apparently distancing themselves from government, e.g. recently u-turning and siding with the left opposition to approve compensating pensions for the disabled against the ruling party's (PS, centre-left) position against it.

Today, the PSD demanded that only the bodycam mandates and wildfire monitoring portions are put forward in order to vote favourably. This means putting aside the AI, biometrics and surveillance provisions. If this stands, the most concerning parts of the law would not go forward.

But in Portugal we're now in a pre-election moment, where positions might flip and statements easily get reversed, so we're bound to have a thrilling few days ahead until the final vote by the end of the month.

That article is pure propaganda and not factually true.

To give some background, the Portuguese government failed to get the annual budget approved, the president dissolved the parliament due to that, and scheduled new elections that will happen in a few months.

Due to that the current government asked the leaders of all political parties to give urgent treatment to 7 diplomas / laws that are almost finished and should not have to wait until after the new elections to be approved. There is no secret move being made here, everyone knows that this is happening.

Regarding the "biometric mass surveillance", one of the 7 laws that where requested to have urgent approval was about allowing the use of video surveillance by the police. The wording of the law was a bit too vague and as such did not get approval from the National Data Protection Commission.

Also, it's worth to mention that the government can't approve the law by themselves and needs support from other (and opposing) political parties.

As it sits now the government has to change the wording of the law to be more specific and ensure that it complies with data protection laws (as in GDPR), and even after that the opposing parties are only willing to approve the use of body-cams by police, and the use of video surveillance to prevent wildfires (which are a major issue in Portugal).

(sidenote: propaganda does not have to be false. propaganda can be true and can be objectively good and useful information. so always couple that with solid points about why the information should be ignored, or skip the propaganda label entirely as it has lost all meaning.)

You make it sound like the National Data Protection Commission warnings of it being unconstitutional a minor thing....

If you read the commission comments on the law you will see several examples of how the video surveillance systems in Portugal are miss managed and abused.

This law opens the door to the use of AI in these systems and with all it's ethical issues.

After all, Portugal is not an unsafe country and local politicians are abusing the false sense of security that the video surveillance systems bring to win a few more votes, disregarding all the medium and long term consequences.

In other words, a solution looking for a problem to solve.

Fear definitely works, especially in small-town Portugal. But I'm not sure it will win those votes?

Not my intention at all.

To clarify, the law WAS awful, but when this was posted here on HN it was already announced that the only thing that PSD (opposing political party) was willing to approve was the use body-cams and wildfires surveillance, and that the CNPD had already deem it unconstitutional.

As it stands now (and it might change, obviously) it seems like none of the "backdoors" will make it to the final law.

So my argument is that this is a non-issue at the moment, but again, it might change because #politics.

And I can't find a source for this, but from what I remember this law was put forward after we had some security issues in the bar areas of Porto and Lisbon, and the police requested more video surveillance to fix it. I believe the Data Protection Commission didn't approved it, so now here we are.

Another aside... Portugal law's are actually strict on video recording. For example, dashcams are technically illegal, since they're collecting of personal information (ie: license plates). It's never been an issue for me, and I've always had a dashcam on my car and nobody (including police) has ever commented.

Another example I can think of from personal experience: aerial photography and filming is only legal with permission from the Portuguese Air Force. This is relevant these days because of drone use. Again, not really an issue. You fill out a form online saying something like "I'm going to film in the Penacove municipality from July 1-31st, during daylight hours" and they send you a license.

My experience is that in Portugal there are laws, then there are enforced laws. Sure you're not really supposed to park there, it says no parking. Not a big deal.

Until you piss off an old lady dressed in black. Then the police comes and tickets everyone :-)

The article has tidbits of hyperbole (you're right that it's no secret move), but accusing it of "pure propaganda" is a pretty strong take.

A bit more background to complement yours: the law was initially put forward in early September, to be put to a vote in a few weeks, sidestepping the required opinions from certain public bodies (like the portuguese DPA, CNPD). This was uncharacteristically fast for a proposal that is supposed to touch a lot of new ground (AI, ethics, permanent recording, biometric storage).

Its quick approval only did not happen as planned because of the death of a former president, which suspended the Parliamentary schedule and moved things forward a couple of weeks. As you remind, this was followed by the announcement of the dissolution of Parliament by the end of November, to be followed by early elections in January.

If it was not for the passing of former president Jorge Sampaio, the law would most probably been successfully fast-tracked. Instead of backing down (the impending dissolution of Parliament would render the proposal void), the government doubled down and asked for special treatment to still get it approved in time. Add to that the fact that this law was initially presented right in the middle of the national campaign for local elections, and one can't be faulted for pointing out an unusual and determined drive to speed this through. Not secret, but hardly fair in democratic terms.

Finally, the framing of this as a "video surveillance bill" (which you follow) is loaded and inaccurate. Video surveillance is thoroughly regulated in Portugal; what this bill brings is the application of AI without any practical safeguards, or biometric databases with few security stipulations, in the 4th safest country in the world with no records of domestic or foreign terrorism. This is exactly the kind of bill that requires proper public debate and getting feedback from public bodies and civil society (as most laws like these do). Its formulation -- mushing together police bodycams, AI, drones, biometrics, expanded access to recordings -- made journalistic reporting and public debate much more difficult.

Why this law is being fast-tracked is still in the realm of speculation, and it's still in the air whether it will go through or not, but let's not dismiss the valid concerns with this kind of opaque political move.

(I'm happy to clarify and add to the relevant context for those not following this closely, but this comment is already long enough)

> 4th safest country in the world

You mean 29th? ;-)

https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/non-economic-data/safest-c...

Portugal was 4th in 2019: it only goes to show how meaningless these rankings are, so I'd drop it as an argument (even a passing one) in any discussion.

Biometric data gathering is officially out of the text [0] (no English source, sorry).

[0]https://www.publico.pt/2021/11/16/politica/noticia/ps-corta-...

> To give some background, the Portuguese government failed to get the annual budget approved, the president dissolved the parliament due to that, and scheduled new elections that will happen in a few months.

Technically, the government did not resign, and the president did not dissolve the parliament yet, it's fully functional. The dissolution will only happen later this month.

if I recall, Portugal is one of the few countries in the West that has already implemented "No Net-Neutrality" .. pay-for-service over the open Internet. I have a screenshot of pricing for "social media tier" and others.

Indeed, Portugal was rightfully highlighted for zero-rating practices by some operators (not charging for some services, e.g. Facebook or Youtube).

But recently the EU indicated it might move to crack down on the practice: https://www.engadget.com/eu-zero-rating-net-neutrality-rulin...

And it was Mobile plans only, since it's illegal to have zero-rating plans on fixed plans.

Wouldn't such a law be considered illegal by the EU?

Not yet or not exactly.

The EU parliament has voted on the issue[1][2], but member nations have to implement the laws following a central directive.

[1] https://reclaimyourface.eu/our-voices-have-been-heard-ep-cal...

[2] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210930IP...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com