Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for a complete ban on the police use of facial recognition as part of his campaign’s broader plan for criminal justice reform. If elected president, Sanders specifically pledges to “ban the use of facial recognition software for policing.” The plan also calls for ending programs that provide military equipment to local police and establishing federal standards for the use of body cameras.
Sanders is the first presidential candidate to call for an outright ban on police use of facial recognition, although a number of other Democratic candidates have expressed concerns about how the technology is being used. Last year, Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) joined with other senators in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, raising concerns about racial bias in facial recognition algorithms.
Facial recognition has been the subject of increasing scrutiny in recent months, much of it spurred by a study from Georgetown Law. The study found that the New York Police Department has sometimes altered images before inputting them into the department’s facial recognition system. In one case, it even used a picture of the actor Woody Harrelson, based on a tip that the suspect resembled Harrelson.
In July, the city of Oakland voted to ban the municipal use of facial recognition, following similar moves by San Francisco and Somerville, Massachusetts. But aside from Sanders’ proposal, there has been little appetite for a similar commitment by the federal government, which uses facial recognition extensively in processing visa holders as they enter and leave the country.
casualblair on August 19th, 2019 at 20:54 UTC »
For those that might wonder what the problem is, it isn't finding the bad guys. It's accidentally tracking the good guys.
Let's say they perfect it and it's 100 percent accurate. If you walk in front of it, it will uniquely identify you even if it doesn't know who you are. Put these in a dozen places and it can collect enough data that can be cross referenced against other locations to see the movement patterns of individuals en masse. Database security is usually pretty bad so this information will eventually be made public.
You think your social security, name, birthdate, address and credit card numbers are bad to get released? Your movement patterns are worse. It can find out when you're not home, where your kids go to school, what your hobbies are, what your commute route and duration is, and identify patterns you never thought were patterns.
Digital tracking is an invasion of privacy. Facial tracking is an invasion of personal space. It's like being tailed by agents 24/7.
So now you have a technology that bad guys can use to track off duty cops. Governments can now track anyone who showed up at or near a protest. Burglars can aggregate faces to find out which houses are empty based on who is seen leaving them.
A technological solution to a problem must always be weighed against the widespread abuse of the solution, because someone will and you can't restrict access to something forever.
bbq4tw on August 19th, 2019 at 17:57 UTC »
How about a corporate ban too unless consent is given
LorthNeeda on August 19th, 2019 at 17:41 UTC »
Please.. we need this to avoid a terribly dystopian future.
I want the future to look like Star Trek, not Bladerunner..