The European Association for Biometrics holds a two-days workshop on October 14 and 15 with various presentations on Biometric Protected Templates. BLL member Els J. Kindt addressed the question if there is a ‘Legal Obligation to Protect Biometric Information’. The presentation slides can be found in our repository. She
DEFORM (Deepfake detection and Explainability using Foundation Representation Models) develops explainable AI methods for detecting multimodal deepfakes (image, video and audio), designed to support expert judgement in forensic, judicial, and policy contexts. DEFORM will develop multimodal manipulation detection and provide modular and multi-level explainability mechanisms for deepfake detection, supporting
The EU Publications Office published the reports made by Catherine Jasserand and by Els J. Kindt for the EU Commission on selected Art. 5 AI Act prohibitions and conditions, including on remote biometric identification. They served as input to the Commission’s Guidelines on Art. 5 AI Act: * E. J.
Abdullah Elbi is very busy disseminating knowledge on biometric data processing and AI. On 24 April 2026 he made a presentation entitled “Zoom Out: Lessons from EU Research Projects on Biometric Technologies from the Border Security Domain” at the final event of the KU Leuven AI & Human Rights Clinic
Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) funded a new project SCAMPER to develop advanced privacy-preserving methods to protect biometric and other sensitive data. These methods will rely on inherent multi-factor authentication and multiple verification steps for strong biometric authentication. The project combines partners from industry and academia. Bilgesu Sumer
Part I of a journal article on biometric identifiability by BLL member César Augusto Fontanillo Lopez was published in the 4/2025 issue of the European Data Protection Law Review just received. Part II will come in the next issue. Reading recommended !
The 2026 handbook on biometric template protection published by Springer is out since a few days. It contains a chapter by Catherine and Els on the legal obligation to protect biometric information. For the references, check out this website’s other pages with publication references.
The Ph.D entitled ‘Cultured Proportionality: Navigating the EU’s Fragmented Facial Recognition Landscape’ defended by Natalia Menéndez González in spring 2025 (see our post below) won (already) two prizes: - the Special Distinction of the European Public Law Organization Thesis Prize (https://egpl.eplo.int/index.php/thesis-prize/), and
During the summer, the BLL was alive and very active. Catherine Jasserand contributed to two (!) summer schools: - the 3rd edition of the EUDiCRI Summer School on Digital Biometrics in the Era of the AI Act, organised by the University of Oriental Piedmont in Italy, where she presented on 'Facial
The BLL was again active at the international CPDP.ai conference in Brussels. Catherine Jasserand and Bilgesu Sumer were invited and participated in the panel Navigating Regulatory Challenges in Soft Biometric Technologies organized by the Dutch data protection authority. The full panel discussion was registered and can be seen at
Catherine Jasserand and Els J. Kindt of the Biometric Law Lab are proud to announce to be member of the COST CA24128 expert network eVoiceNet which was selected in this year’s higly competitive COST programme (a research funding program by the EU Commission and EU Member States) (8 % of
Catherine Jasserand and Abdullah Elbi both participated and spoke at the international Martigny Biometrics Workshop 2025, held at the Idiap Research Institute in Martigny, Switzerland, on 19 and 20 May, 2025. Catherine presented on May 20, 2025 a key note entitled ‘AI Act and Biometrics: Quo Vadis’ and chaired the
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has succesfully defended her Ph.D thesis on May 19, 2025 at the European University Institute, Florence. She researched the proportionality principle as accountability tool for the use of facial recognition technology. Congratulations Natalia !