NEW: here is @fightfortheftr's argument for why private and corporate use of facial recognition surveillance poses just as much of a threat to human rights as government use. We're calling for an outright ban. fightfortheftr.medium.com/why-we-absolut…
There are numerous ways that corporations and even private individuals can use facial recognition to do enormous harm, exacerbating and automating existing forms of oppression and exploitation. Schools, hospitals, retail stores, sporting venues and more are already experimenting.
Our friends @EFF have suggested that an opt-in consent based regulatory framework is sufficient to address this harm. eff.org/deeplinks/2021… We disagree. Biometric surveillance is more like lead paint or nuclear weapons than firearms or alcohol.
You couldn't ask for a more clear example of why a opt-in consent is insufficient than this story about Uber Eats drivers being subjected to racist facial identification software as a pre-condition for employment. wired.co.uk/article/uber-e…
If employees have to agree to being under constant facial recognition surveillance in order to have a job, that's not meaningful consent. If a patient has to agree to have their biometric information collected in order to receive care at a hospital, that's not really consent.
Even more innocuous uses, like getting your face scanned to buy a burrito or take money out of the ATM, come with significant risks. The vast majority of people have no idea what the dangers of this technology are. Putting the onus on them fails to recognize power imbalances.
There are a handful of exceptions worth considering, for research or personal use such as unlocking a phone (still don't recommend). That's why we support the Portland, OR ordinance that bans all use of facial recognition in places of public accommodation, as defined by the ADA
We think this ordinance should be used as a template for other local, state, and federal legislation. It will prevent nightmare scenarios, like a retail store using facial recognition and publicly available mugshot databases to ban anyone with a criminal record from their store..
... or a stalker using commercially available facial recognition to scan a crowd for someone they are harassing, or white supremacists using it to identify individuals participating in an anti-racist protest, or private colleges forcing students to "agree" to its use on campus.
We can do this. I wrote here with @tmorello about our successful campaign that got more than 40 of the worlds' largest music festivals to commit to not using facial recognition at their events. We need to build on victories like this to ban it everywhere buzzfeednews.com/article/evangr…
And we need to act fast. Facial recognition vendors are already exploiting the pandemic to push their racist, ineffective software on all kinds of institutions from schools to movie theaters. We need to draw a line in the sand now, before we're living in a Black Mirror episode.
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