A new report by the Council of Europe’s human rights monitoring body, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), warns of “racial profiling” in Europe in its latest findings, published Wednesday, May 28th.
“We’ve noticed that no member state of the Council of Europe is really immune when it comes to racial profiling,” said Bertil Cottier, chair of the ECRI. The Council determined that using facial recognition AI technology to track and identify criminals or registering undocumented immigrants is a violation of human rights and counts as racial profiling.
Italy was identified as one of the countries where racial profiling is a supposed concern. “During our visit to Italy we noticed some cases of racial profiling within the police forces. We made a recommendation to the Italian government to take this issue seriously,” said Cottier.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni publicly defended the country’s police forces on X: “The words uttered by the Commission against Racism and Intolerance of the Council of Europe, accusing the Italian police forces of racism, are simply shameful,” the conservative politician continued “Unfortunately, this is not the first time that some bodies of the Council of Europe—also financed with money from Italian citizens—indulge in unfounded judgments, the result of an ideological approach and obvious prejudices.”
