Privacy Advocates Slam a UK Museum for Using Facial-Recognition Surveillance at Its Terracotta Warriors Show

Next time you visit a museum, beware: you just might be being
watched.

Civil liberties advocates are condemning a UK museum’s use of
controversial facial-recognition technology as an extra security
measure for a blockbuster show of Terracotta Warriors from
China.

The advocacy group Big Brother Watch has revealed that the World
Museum in Liverpool in the North West of England used the
technology during its loan exhibition from China last year. In
a statement, the director of Big Brother Watch, Silkie Carlo,
noted that the “authoritarian surveillance tool is rarely seen
outside of China.” Rarely, that is, until now in the UK, where its
use is spreading rapidly beyond airports and border crossings. This
marks the technology’s first reported use by a national museum.

The World Museum, which has an annual attendance of 1.4 million
visitors and is the flagship of the National Museums
Liverpool, joins a growing list of venues, including office and
retail complexes, casinos, and a conference center, that use or
have used facial-recognition surveillance. Big Brother Watch
describes its spread across the UK as “an epidemic.” Critics argue
that the technology is flawed and possibly discriminatory as well
as intrusive, while supporters and the police say it helps reduce
crime and protect public safety.

A spokeswoman for National Museums Liverpool defended its use of
the enhanced surveillance technology as an additional security
measure for the exhibition, titled “China’s First Emperor and the
Terracotta Warriors,” which ran from February to the end of October
last year. The technology was used on the advice of the local
police and not at the request of the Chinese lenders, artnet News
understands.

In a statement, National Museums Liverpool said that it “used
facial recognition technology at the World Museum when there was a
heightened security risk during the exhibition.” It adds that the
extra security measure was put in place after seeking advice from
Merseyside Police and local counter-terrorism advisors.

The show of ancient artifacts and sculptures from the imperial
tomb came from the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and
the Shaanxi History Museum in China.

Big Brother Watch pointed out that many of those scanned
visiting the exhibition would have been children. Although not
every venue using the technology notifies the public, the World
Museum did have warning signs in place.

While National Museums Liverpool has not ruled out using
facial-recognition technology in the future, it decided not to use
it during another high-profile exhibition last year that also
included rare loans. “Double Fantasy – John & Yoko” at the Museum
of Liverpool featured personal objects drawn from Yoko Ono’s
private collection, some of which had never been displayed
before.

The post Privacy Advocates Slam a UK Museum for Using
Facial-Recognition Surveillance at Its Terracotta Warriors Show
appeared first on artnet News.