This chapter deals with one of the hottest issues in recent years: the application of artificial intelligence to surveillance systems and the movements against this type of surveillance in Spain. The authors show how, in the face of the advance of facial recognition technologies in more and more aspects of our lives in Spain and around the world, movements of response and rejection to this new model of society are being organised. The cases of UNIR and Mercadona are analysed in this text as representative of the state of these debates in the Spanish public sphere.
People worry that computers will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they're too stupid and they've already taken over the world. Pedro Domingos, The Master Algorithm (2015)
TopIntroduction
Are machines as stupid as Pedro Domingos proposes? The reality is that they are not. In fact, as shown by the evolution of the situation in recent years, everything points to the contrary: the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research is exponential at a global level and, as predicted by science fiction films such as Wargames (1983) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), machines have taken control of our world. This expansion has been carried out, on the vast majority of occasions, with the public's back turned and in the midst of considerable misinformation.
The implementation of AI in different aspects of our lives is already a daily reality. For example, Spaniards spend an average of 5 hours and 14 minutes connected to the internet, of which 2 hours and 24 minutes are spent on their mobile phones. WhatsApp and social networks are the elements to which most time is dedicated (Saura, Palacios-Marqués, & Iturricha-Fernández, 2021a). A digital scenario in which, in 2020, 7.6 million Spaniards considered themselves addicted to their devices and 61% of them recognised that looking at their mobile phone was the first and last thing they did every day (Asociación de Marketing de España [MKT], 2021). Throughout all these hours of consumption, users provided, through their interaction with the network, information about themselves that came to swell what, in recent years, has become known as big data: an overwhelming volume of personal data (Ribeiro-Navarrete, Saura & Palacios Marqués, 2021a; Saura, Ribeiro-Soriano & Palacios-Marqués, 2021b) that different corporations process using AI for purposes that are sometimes opaque, such as: product development, providing a clear view of the customer experience on websites, facilitating machine learning and driving innovation (APD, 2019).
Studies by the Observatorio Nacional de Tecnología y Sociedad (ONTSI) point in the same direction of increasing use of AI. According to data from 2020, the Spanish business fabric is beginning to familiarise itself with Artificial Intelligence and its use is still incipient: the average use in companies in the European Union is 7%, while in Spain it stands at 6%. Large Spanish companies are the most intensive in the incorporation of AI, reaching 18% adoption of technologies such as machine learning through big data, followed by service robots, virtual customer assistants or chatbots, and natural language processing.
Although Spain is currently in a modest position in terms of AI adoption, the policy designed by the Secretaría de Estado de Digitalización e Inteligencia Artificial, known as the Estrategia Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial (ENIA), aims to give a decisive boost to artificial intelligence in all sectors in the coming years (ONTSI, 2021).
One of these sectors, which is experiencing a significant growth in its implementation and attention, is the development and use of facial recognition systems for security and citizen control purposes, both by the different state apparatuses and by different corporations and private capital. A technology that is sparking heated debates in both the national and international public sphere (Castelluccia & Le Métayer, 2021; Selinger & Hartzog, 2020; Janssen, Brous, Estevez, Barbosa, & Janowski, 2020). This paper aims to approach the form and content that these debates on new technologies, security and infringement of fundamental rights are taking in Spain, focusing on the criticisms that are being made from certain social and political sectors.
After a brief introduction to what they are, how they work and the implementation of this type of identification systems, this paper will proceed to analyse some of the lines of opposition to the use of these technologies in Spain, as well as some of the most recent and important controversies and mobilisations in the country. In this way, an attempt will be made to establish the main resistance offered by Spanish society to the use of facial recognition.