The European Data Protection Board pointed out that face and biometric data in general are permanently and irrevocably linked to a person’s identity (EDPB, 2022), and while photographs have been used to identify people since the invention of photography, one of the main obstacles to their reliability and practical applicability was the lack of a system that would catalogue or index the images for later search and retrieval (Dumbrava, 2021). However, biometric surveillance and algorithmic control have become so commonplace that in 2019 the European Parliament voted to create a biometric database that would centralise law enforcement, immigration and other information on more than 350 million people. However, the application of facial recognition technology can raise a number of fundamental legal challenges, which arise from the disadvantaged position of those individuals whose facial images would be recorded and then compared to a so-called watch list. At the same time, the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency has pointed out that facial recognition technology can provide more effective protection in time—for example by helping to locate missing children—and help detect fraud and identity theft (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2019).