Re: An appeal to the Data Protection Commissioner

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2016 03:04:48 -0700

Hi Ish,
At 02:32 18-03-2016, Ish Sookun wrote:
>I received a letter from the Data Protection Office last week. The
>letter is dated 9 March 2016. The letter says:
>
>- fingerprint data (images & minutiae) are not permanently stored
>into the system.
>- the fingerprint data of all previously enrolled citizens in the
>MNIC database have been destroyed. MNIC backup storage have been
>electronically destroyed.
>- the photograph of the citizen, which is taken during registration,
>has always been of JPEG format which remains into the database. The
>JPEG format photographs follow the guidelines of the International
>Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and no biometric data are being extracted.
>
>The letter does not specify the standards of the photo, which I
>quoted in my initial letter, i.e ISO/IEC 19794-5.
>
>Upon reading the line *has always been of JPEG format which remains
>into the database*, I am tempted to believe that the Commissioner
>did not understand how the judgment affects the old practice of
>keeping the JPEG format photograph in the database. It seems that
>the understanding of the Commissioner is that this has been the
>practice and there is no problem in that.

JPEG is an image format. The ISO/IEC 19794-5 standard "specifies
scene, photographic, digitization and format requirements for images
of faces to be used in the context of both human verification and
computer automated recognition". When the photographer is taking the
photo of a person, he/she cannot snap a photo and send it as a JPEG
file. The photographer has to see that there is a proper background
for the photo, he/she would direct the person to have an expression
which is appropriate for the purposes of identification. This is
even more important when combined with a facial recognition system
for the automated verification of the person's identity.

Was there a Data Protection Act when that old practice started? Did
anyone do a PIA?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Sat Mar 19 2016 - 10:08:01 PST