Italian State Police

SARI Real Time was designed to analyse live camera feeds against a predefined watchlist of up to 10,000 faces and alert operators on a match. The Garante's review found it was not yet active and ruled it unlawful as designed. This is exactly the kind of regulatory finding this tracker exists to document: a live facial recognition system blocked by a data protection authority before deployment, not after.

Update, November 2026. Legislative Decree no. 160 of 9 September 2026, on the use of AI systems by the police forces and on civil and criminal liability, was published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale (no. 214) on 15 September 2026 and entered into force on 30 September 2026. Article 8 allows real-time remote biometric identification in public places only for the targeted search for missing persons or victims of certain offences, or to prevent the threats listed in the EU AI Act (an imminent threat to life or physical safety, or a terrorist attack). Each use needs the authorisation of the district's public prosecutor (procuratore della Repubblica), for no more than fifteen days; in urgent cases use may begin on the order of the questore, with the request reaching the prosecutor within 24 hours. The comparison database is built for each use and deleted when the authorisation ends. Article 9 requires a fundamental-rights impact assessment and a data protection impact assessment, five-year logs, and notification of the Garante after use. The Garante gave a favourable opinion on the draft, subject to seven conditions, on 14 July 2026. No deployment of a real-time system by the Polizia di Stato under the decree has been reported. Separately, a coalition of digital-rights groups including Hermes Center reported on 12 March 2026 that Italy's moratorium on facial recognition in public places had been extended to 31 December 2027.