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• Rule 1: Purpose of collection

Resources and learning

Rule 1 is about your reason for collecting biometric information to use in a biometric system. You need to ensure:

1. Your collection of biometric information is for a lawful purpose. See our detailed guidance on lawful purpose.
2. Your collection is necessary, meaning it is an effective way of achieving your purpose and you cannot reasonably achieve your purpose as effectively by an alternative with less privacy risk. See our detailed guidance on assessing necessity.
3. You have implemented appropriate privacy safeguards. See our detailed guidance on implementing safeguards.
4. Your biometric processing is proportionate to the likely impacts on people. See our detailed guidance on proportionality.

Download a printable version of this flowchart (opens to PDF, 473KB).