Buenos Aires' Facial Recognition System for Fugitives — Court Suspends and Conditions a Citywide Biometric Programme

In 2019 the Government of the City of Buenos Aires launched the Sistema de Reconocimiento Facial de Prófugos (SRFP), matching faces from public cameras against the national fugitive register CONARC. The judge in the case noted that CONARC held roughly 35,000-40,000 records, and the city reported 1,695 people identified and handed to the justice system since launch. The judge also found more than 9 million queries to the national identity database RENAPER, far more than a fugitive list would require; the city's justice minister said most were identity validations for other procedures.
The Observatorio de Derecho Informático Argentino (ODIA) and others filed an amparo. A Buenos Aires administrative court suspended the system in April 2022, and in a 2022 ruling upheld the amparo: the system had been implemented without the legal guarantees needed to protect personal rights, it processed every face passing the cameras rather than only fugitives, and its operation showed shortcomings and irregularities, including false positives. The court conditioned any activation on the constitution and working of oversight bodies, and ordered a data protection impact assessment and public debate before any re-implementation.
The city government challenged the judge (recusación) and said the system had been paused since the pandemic because masks hampered it. Dates and the specific court number differ across sources, so the entry cites the substance of the findings only. It is a cautionary case on deploying biometric surveillance before oversight bodies exist.

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