UK gym chain poised to remove facial recognition cameras from all branches
Steve* got in touch with us at Big Brother Watch after his local gym installed facial recognition gates.
Energie Fitness, a chain with 55 branches across Britain, was requiring a facial scan to enter, and Steve said they were giving him no choice but to use it or forfeit his membership.
The law requires businesses and employers to provide an alternative to biometric access requirements – whether that be a PIN, ID card or keyfob instead of a face, fingerprint or even iris scan. Failing to do so is a breach of data protection law.
We got in touch with Energie Fitness, escalating the company to get answers about their facial recognition system. When they wouldn’t provide them, we reported them to the data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO).
We submitted a detailed report, including Steve’s evidence and our own correspondence with Energie Fitness.
After several months, we received a response in Novemeber 2024 from the ICO. They found that Energie Fitness did not breach data protection law because they provided an alternative method of entry to facial recognition technology. This doesn’t tally with Steve’s experience or with what we heard directly from the Energie Fitness branch.
Critically, though, as a result of the investigation, Energie Fitness told the ICO that it would be removing facial recognition technology from all its branches.
Our report to the ICO did its job. It reminded businesses that they can’t expect to install invasive surveillance technology and not expect pushback and scrutiny– from members of the public and from Big Brother Watch.
Facial recognition is creeping into more and more areas of our lives: schools, workplaces, and high streets. We can’t allow invasive biometric identity checks to become normalised for everyday activities like clocking in to a shift or paying for a school dinner. We will challenge the use of disproportionate facial recognition technology wherever we find it – and help you do it too.
*Name changed to protect anonymity.
Note: ICO response to Big Brother Watch complaint about Energie Fitness’ data protection practices
The post UK gym chain poised to remove facial recognition cameras from all branches appeared first on Big Brother Watch.
Source: https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/blog/uk-gym-chain-poised-to-remove-facial-recognition-cameras-from-all-branches/
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