This is huge. The ACM is calling for an "immediate suspension of the current and future private and governmental use" of Facial Recognition technologies, for "both technical and ethical reasons."
acm.org/binaries/conte…
acm.org/binaries/conte…
For those outside of the space, the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society.
If you own stock in a facial recognition technology company or have invested in an FRT startup, now is the time to sell ;)
If you're invested in a larger tech company that has a unit working on this stuff, I'd suggest a shareholder resolution to get out now.
If you work at an institution (school, university, workplace) and were considering purchasing a face surveillance system, a) you shouldn't have been anyway but b) now you should REALLY rethink that contract/vendor
If you're a community organizer, working on #DefundThePolice, use this ACM announcement as ammunition to get your municipality/county to cancel any face surveillance contracts or plans.
If you're a student, apply your brilliance in another direction! The world is large, the paths are many, don't get stuck in a dead-end, ethical morass, backwater deprecated subfield.
This announcement will also strengthen the possibility that we can pass the federal Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which would be a good thing:
If you've read this far, perhaps you'll be interested also know that yes, the ACM suggests a path forward with a set of principles that should be met before FRTs should be used in the wild.
They suggest ACCURACY, TRANSPARENCY, GOVERNANCE, RISK MANAGEMENT, and ACCOUNTABILITY principles, with sub-bullets providing more detail.
You didn't really think computer scientists would suggest a permanent ban on a powerful computing technology, did you? In any case, this announcement is HUGE and we can use it to push forward an immediate stop to many real world deployments of harmful face surveillance. /end
Since this is getting some traction: please support the Algorithmic Justice League! Follow @AJLUnited; donate here: filmmakerscollab.networkforgood.com/projects/26497…
