No, that is still banned.

The problem is not whether it's private or government.

The problem are multiple, but the main two problems found in an experiment with public facial rec. in an Italian city (Como, and now in Udine, too) are:

* municipalities should not have the power to conduct an investigation. That is a clear breach of the separation of powers. At least in Italy every access to information for investigation must be logged, from why it was collected to who requested access to it. Most of the initial deployments of facial rec are way too broad

* Our laws require consent before gathering information on people, and biometric has even stricter rules. Just going around in public is hardly giving consent

Do you need consent to be photographed or filmed in public spaces? At least in the US, there is no expectation of privacy in public spaces and if someone wants to film you - whether an amateur photographer, a journalist, or a police officer - they are permitted to, simply because it is their constitutional right to do so.

>Do you need consent to be photographed or filmed in public spaces?

You do in Europe. You essentially own the copyright to your face.

That's not true. At least in Germany you can take pictures of people in public places without consent (with certain restrictions). Publishing these pictures is where the "copyright" on your face part comes into play.

You can have a government owned database and not send anything to a third party. The way it works with fingerprints and DNA data, at least in my country.