Privacy Commissioner of Canada Publishes Guidance on Biometrics for Public and Private Sector
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“OPC”) has issued updated guidance for both public and private sector organizations on the responsible use of biometric technologies, such as facial recognition and fingerprint scanning. This guidance follows a public consultation held between November 2023 and February 2024, which included input from academia, civil society, businesses, legal associations, and individuals. The guidance emphasizes the need for a clear and appropriate purpose when collecting, using, or disclosing biometric data. Organizations must assess privacy risks, ensure proportionality, and implement safeguards to protect biometric information. The guidance outlines consent requirements, stresses transparency, and calls for accuracy testing of biometric systems.
New Zealand Privacy Commissioner Announces New Biometrics Rules
The New Zealand Privacy Commissioner has introduced a Biometric Processing Privacy Code (the “Code”) that will create specific privacy rules for businesses and organizations using biometric technologies such as facial recognition. The Code aims to balance innovation with the protection of sensitive personal data while ensuring that businesses and organizations using biometric systems do so safely, transparently, and proportionately. Key requirements of the Code include mandatory assessments of whether biometric use is effective and proportionate, implementation of safeguards to reduce privacy risks, and requirements to notify individuals when biometric data is being collected. The Code prohibits intrusive uses, such as predicting emotions or inferring protected characteristics like ethnicity or sex. The Code comes into force on November 3, 2025, with a grace period until August 3, 2026, for existing biometric systems to comply. It carries the same legal weight as the New Zealand Privacy Act Information Privacy Principles and replaces them for biometric-specific applications.
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