{
  "record": {
    "id": "1f0c6a96-2507-4265-9878-9d491853134c",
    "code": "PAI-1F0C6A96",
    "force": "Hungarian National Police",
    "country": "Hungary",
    "country_code": "hu",
    "is_country": true,
    "region": "Nationwide; deployed at Budapest Pride, June 2025",
    "technology": "Retrospective Facial Recognition (PND search)",
    "technology_slug": "retrospective-fr-pnd",
    "vendor": "National Expertise and Research Centre database (collected from ID cards/driving licences since 2015)",
    "vendor_slug": "",
    "programme": "",
    "status": "operational",
    "stage": "in-use",
    "evidence": "ngo",
    "evidence_is_claim": false,
    "since": "2025",
    "legal_basis": "2025 amendments to Hungarian law, in force 15 April 2025, extending permitted FR use from custodial-sentence offences to all infraction proceedings",
    "oversight": "None domestically; subject of complaints to the European Commission",
    "notes": "Three amendments passed by Hungary's Parliament within 24 hours in March 2025 without public debate extended facial recognition from serious offences to ALL infraction procedures -- the examples given by challengers being identifying Pride march attendees or jaywalkers. The same legislative package created a legal basis to ban Pride marches. Cameras were installed along the Budapest Pride route in June 2025 (reportedly the largest in Hungarian history); police announced 7 July 2025 that no participants would be fined. Civil society coalition (Civil Liberties Union for Europe, EDRi, ECNL, HCLU) argues this meets the EU AI Act's definition of a prohibited 'real-time' remote biometric identification system rather than merely high-risk 'post' identification, and wrote to the European Commission urging infringement proceedings; 17 EU member states have formally accused Hungary of contravening EU values over the wider package. A peer-reviewed article appears in the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law (July 2026).\n\nUpdate, November 2026. An opinion piece in EUobserver (25 June 2026) by Eva Simon (Liberties), Aljosa Ajanovic Andelic (EDRi) and Karolina Iwanska (ECNL) says that after the change of government under Péter Magyar the 2025 laws that \"enable biometric surveillance of protesters remain in force\", together with the Pride restrictions. It reports a civil society letter asking the new government and parliamentary committees to repeal the amendments and to hold a public consultation on biometric surveillance, and says the results of any European Commission assessment under the AI Act are not known. The piece does not say whether police are currently using the system, and no repeal or suspension has been reported.",
    "source": "EUobserver (opinion), 25 June 2026",
    "source_url": "https://euobserver.com/224022/budapest-free-to-celebrate-pride-again-but-orban-surveillance-machine-still-in-place/",
    "last_checked": "2026-11-04",
    "record_url": "https://www.policeainews.com/tracker/record/1f0c6a96-2507-4265-9878-9d491853134c"
  },
  "licence": "https://www.policeainews.com/data#licence"
}