Comune di Como (Polizia Locale)

The Garante's provvedimento of 26 February 2020 (n. 54) records that the Comune di Como was running a trial ("sperimentazione") of a video surveillance system with facial recognition in the Parco Tokamakhi green area in front of San Giovanni station. The stated purposes included helping the local police identify people under investigation or reported missing and detecting suspicious behaviour, abandoned objects, thefts and entries to areas of interest. The Garante found that the biometric processing, with seven-day retention, lacked a legal basis and issued an injunction requiring the Comune to bring the processing into line with Legislative Decree 51/2018. Il Giorno (23 August 2020) reports that the first facial recognition cameras were installed in the park in August 2019 for a six-month trial, intended to give the Polizia Locale's judicial police unit, and later the Polizia and Carabinieri, a means to identify people under investigation; Il Giorno (12 June 2020) reports that the facial recognition function was disabled from 20 March 2020, after the Garante wrote to the Comune that the processing of biometric data was prohibited. Privacy International (17 September 2020) reports that the Comune had awarded A2A Smart City a tender to add facial recognition to further cameras, that cameras installed in May 2020 were described by the Comune as turned off and installed for future use, and that the system's features belong to Huawei's Matrix Intelligence platform. The decision does not name the vendor. From December 2021 a national moratorium suspended the installation of facial recognition video surveillance in public places by public authorities and private parties, initially until 31 December 2023 and then extended to 31 December 2025 (Il Post, 7 December 2021 and 22 June 2023). No source reports that the facial recognition function was re-enabled.