Comment by ARTICLE 19

Notwithstanding the limited reach of the ban on predictive policing — which excludes event and location-based predictions — the guidelines must clarify that predicting ‘risk of committing a criminal offence’ includes all systems that purport to predict a wide range of behaviours that are criminalised and have criminal law and administrative consequences. As such, the guidelines should specify that systems making predictions about the likelihood of being registered in a police system [...] are within the scope of the prohibition, [...] In these cases, such systems must be covered by the ban as they amount to criminal risk assessments, and systems such as risk assessments included in ETIAS shall also be banned. The current ban on non targeted scraping of facial images leaves room for problematic loopholes. The guidelines must clarify that any derogation from the ban must be in line with the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, and that any face scraped from the internet or CCTV footage must have a link to the commission of a crime.