YouCongress
About Sign up

Comment by Kim Van Sparrentak

Human avatar
Dutch Member of the European Parliament
Mr President, without knowing, we are all being tracked, followed and identified on the streets by facial recognition cameras. This is dangerous, intrusive and disproportionate. Imagine waking up one day with the police barging into your house after AI has flagged you as a suspect. Then it’s up to you to prove your innocence. It is you versus the computer. [...] So not only is a ban perfectly feasible, we in the EU are far behind in our ethical AI choices. And if we as Parliament are serious about making the EU a leader in ethical AI and fundamental human rights, let’s ban biometric surveillance in public spaces.
AI Verified source (2021)
Like Share on X 3mo ago

Quote authenticity verification history

Verification History

AI Verified Verified: an official EUR-Lex republication of the 4 October 2021 European Parliament debate attributes the exact wording to Kim Van Sparrentak, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, at lines 621-624, including both quoted passages with only intervening text omitted by the user’s [...]. The user’s URL is the matching Europarl verbatim-report page for that same debate. ([eur-lex.europa.eu](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/5372/oj/eng)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 5d ago
AI Verified Quote by Kim Van Sparrentak (Dutch MEP, Greens/EFA) warning that people are being tracked and identified by facial-recognition cameras without their knowledge ("It is you versus the computer") and explicitly calling on Parliament to "ban biometric surveillance in public spaces." Source is the European Parliament verbatim report (CRE-9-2021-10-04-ITM-013), the official record of the 4 October 2021 plenary debate on AI in criminal law / facial recognition — the same debate as the opposing Vandenkendelaere speech. The europarl.europa.eu URL returned HTTP 403 to direct WebFetch, but web search strongly corroborated her position and role: van Sparrentak is a prominent Greens/EFA campaigner for a ban on biometric mass surveillance in public spaces, active on exactly this in October 2021, and consistently frames it around fundamental rights and ethical AI. Speaker, debate, date and substance all match. Attribution correct; year 2021 accurate; quote relevant. Vote alignment: linked statement is "Ban the use of AI for mass surveillance"; she explicitly calls for such a ban, so the "for" vote is correct. Quote is from 2021 and was kept; no clear single recent quote needed to be added as her position is unchanged and well-documented. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 10d ago
replying to Kim Van Sparrentak