Name: Why EFF Doesn’t Support Bans On Private Use of Face Recognition
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Why EFF Doesn’t Support Bans On Private Use of Face Recognition

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Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItGovernment and private use of face recognition technology each present a wealth of concerns. Privacy, safety, and amplification of carceral bias are just some of the reasons why we must ban government use.But what about private use?&nbsp;It also can exacerbate injustice, including its use by police contractors, establishments, business improvement districts, and .Still, EFF does not support banning private use of the technology. Some users may choose to deploy it to lock their mobile devices or to demonstrate the hazards of the tech in government hands. So instead of a prohibition on private use, we support strict laws to ensure that each of us is empowered to choose if and by whom our faceprints may be collected. This requires mandating informed opt-in consent and data minimization, enforceable through a robust private right of action.Illinois has had such for more than a decade. This approach properly balances the human right to control technology—both to use and develop it, and to be free from other people’s use of it.Face recognition technology requires us to confront complicated questions in the context of centuries-long racism and oppression within and beyond the criminal system.&nbsp;Eighteenth-century “” requiring Black and indigenous people to carry lanterns to illuminate themselves at night are one of the earliest examples of a useful technology twisted into a force multiplier of oppression. Today, face recognition technology has the power of covert bulk collection of biometric data that was inconceivable less than a generation ago.Unlike our driver’s licenses, credit card numbers, or even our names, we cannot easily change our faces. So once our biometric data is captured and stored as a face template, it is largely indelible. Furthermore, as a CBP vendor found out when the face images of approximately travelers were stolen, databases of biometric information are ripe targets for data thieves.Face recognition technology chills fundamental freedoms. As early as 2015, the Baltimore police used it to target . Its extends far beyond political rallies. Images captured outside houses of worship, medical facilities, community centers, or our homes can be used to infer our familial, political, religious, and sexual relationships.&nbsp;Police have unparalleled discretion to use violence and intrude on liberties. From our nation’s inception, essential freedoms have not been equally available to all, and the discretion vested in law enforcement only accentuates these disparities. One need look no further than the or the . &nbsp;In 2020, as some people took to the streets to protest police violence against Black people, and others came out to protest COVID-19 mask mandates, police enforced&nbsp; their authority in manners.&nbsp;Face recognition amplifies these police powers and aggravates these racial disparities.Each step of the way, the private sector has contributed. Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM are among the many vendors that have built face recognition for police (though in response to they have temporarily ceased doing so). Clearview AI continues to process of billions of people without their consent in order to help police identify suspects. Such companies ignore the human right to make informed choices over the collection and use of biometric data, and join law enforcement in exacerbating long-established inequities.In the hands of government, face recognition technology is simply too threatening. The legislative solution is clear: ban government use of this technology.EFF has fought to do so, alongside our members, , other national groups like the ACLU, and a broad range of concerned community-based groups. We supported the effort to pass San Francisco’s . We’ve also advocated before city councils in California ( and ), Massachusetts (, , and ), and Oregon ().Likewise, we helped pass California’s . It establishes a three-year moratorium on the use of face recognition technology with body worn police cameras. AB 1215 is the nation’s first state-level face recognition prohibition. We also joined with the ACLU and others in demanding that manufacturers .&nbsp;In 2019, we launched our campaign. The campaign supplies for an effective ban on government use of face recognition, tools to prepare for meeting with local officials, and a library of existing ordinances. Members of EFF’s organizing team also work with community-based members of the Electronic Frontier Alliance to build local coalitions, deliver public comment at City Council hearings, and build awareness in their respective communities.&nbsp;EFF works to ensure that technology supports for all the people of the world. In our experience, when government tries to take technology out of the hands of the public, it is often serving the interests of the strong against the weak. Thus, while it is clear that we must ban government use of face recognition technology, we support a different approach to private use.As wrote in a 2019 piece for McSweeney’s titled “”: “Our twenty-first-century digital environment offers Black communities a constant pendulum swing between promise and peril.” High-tech profiling, policing, and punishment exacerbate the violence of America’s race-based caste system. Still, other technologies have facilitated the development of intersectional and movements for change, including encrypted communication, greater access to video recording, and the ability to of traditional media.and secure our private communications from snooping by stalkers and foreign nations. Our help us to document police misconduct against our neighbors. allows everyone to (in the words of the U.S. Supreme Court) “become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox.” holds the promise of greater financial privacy and independence from financial censorship.EFF has long resisted government efforts to ban or hobble the development of such novel technologies. We stand with against wrongful arrest for recording on-duty officers, with against laws that stop them from using the Internet to share safety information with peers, and with against FBI attempts to weaken encryption. Emerging technologies are for everyone.There are many menacing ways for private entities to use face recognition. , for example, uses it to help police departments identify and arrest protesters.It does not follow that all private use of face recognition technology undermines human rights. For example, many people use face recognition their smartphones. While passwords provide , without this option some users might not secure their devices at all.Research and anti-surveillance scholars have made good use of the technology. 2018 saw from then-MIT researcher Joy Boulamwini and Dr. Timnit Gebru, exposing face recognition’s algorithmic bias. That same year, the ACLU utilized Amazon’s Rekognition system to demonstrate the disparate inefficacy of a technology that disproportionately misidentified congressional representatives of color as individuals in publicly accessible arrest photos. U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA), one of the lawmakers erroneously matched despite being part of the demographic the technology identifies most accurately, went on to introduce the .&nbsp;These salutary efforts would be illegal in a state or city that banned private use of face recognition. Even a site-specific ban—for example, just in public forums like parks, or public accommodations like cafes—would limit anti-surveillance activism in those sites. For example, it would bar a live demonstration at a rally or lecture of how face recognition works on a volunteer.While EFF does not support a ban on private use of face recognition, we do support strict limits. Specifically, laws should subject private parties to the following rules:Do not collect a faceprint from a person without their prior written opt-in consent.Likewise, do not disclose a person’s faceprint without their consent.Do not retain a faceprint after the purpose of collection is satisfied, or after a fixed period of time, whichever is sooner.Do not sell faceprints, period.Securely store faceprints to prevent their theft or misuse.All privacy laws need effective enforcement. Most importantly, a person who discovers that their privacy rights are being violated must have a “” so they can sue the rule-breaker.In 2008, Illinois enacted the first law of this kind: the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (). A new sponsored by U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Bernie Sanders seeks to implement BIPA on a nationwide basis.We’d like this kind of law to contain two additional limits. First, private entities should be prohibited from collecting, using, or disclosing a person’s faceprint except as necessary to give them something they asked for. This privacy principle is “.” Second, if a person refuses to consent to faceprinting, a private entity should be prohibited from retaliating against them by, for example, charging a higher price or making them stand in a longer line. EFF opposes “ ” schemes that pressure everyone to surrender their privacy rights, and contribute to an income-based society of privacy “haves” and “have nots.” Such laws should also have an exemption for information.EFF has long worked to enact more BIPA-type laws, including in and . We regularly advocate in Illinois to . We have filed amicus briefs in a and the to ensure strong enforcement of BIPA, and in an against an ill-conceived challenge to the law’s constitutionality.Illinois’ BIPA enjoys robust enforcement. For example, Facebook agreed to pay its users to settle a case challenging non-consensual faceprinting under the company’s “tag suggestions” feature. Also, the ACLU recently sued for its non-consensual faceprinting of billions of people. Illinoisans have filed dozens of other BIPA suits.EFF supports one rule for government use of face surveillance (ban it) and another for private use (strictly limit it). What happens when government use and private use overlap?Some government agencies purchase faceprints or faceprinting services from private entities. Government should be banned from doing so. Indeed, most bans on government use of face recognition on government obtaining or using information derived from a face surveillance system.Some government agencies own public forums, like parks and sidewalks, that private entities use for their own expressive activities, like protests and festivals. If community members wish to incorporate consensual demonstrations of facial recognition into their expressive activity, subject to the strict limits above, they should not be deprived of the right to do so in the public square. Thus, when a draft of Boston’s ban on government use of face recognition also prohibited issuance of permits to third parties to use the technology, EFF and language limiting this to when third parties are acting on behalf of the city.Some government agencies own large restricted spaces, like airports, and grant other entities long-term permission to operate there. EFF opposes . This includes by the airport authority itself; by other government agencies operating inside the airport, including federal, state, and local law enforcement; and by private security contractors. This also includes a ban on government access to information derived from private use of face recognition. On the other hand, EFF does not support a ban on private entities making their own use of face recognition inside airports, subject to the strict limits above. This includes use by travelers and airport retailers. Some anti-surveillance advocates have sought on private use.and other places of public accommodation are deploying face recognition to identify all people entering the establishment. EFF strongly opposes this practice. When used for theft prevention, it has a racially disparate impact: the photo libraries of supposedly “suspicious” people are often based upon unfair encounters between people of color and law enforcement or corporate security. When used to micro-target sales to customers, this practice intrudes on privacy: the photo libraries of consumers, correlated to their supposed preferences, are based on corporate surveillance of online and offline activity.The best way to solve this problem is with the strict limits above. For example, the requirement of written opt-in consent would bar a store from conducting face recognition on everyone who walks in.On the other hand, EFF does not support bans on private use of face recognition within public accommodations. The anti-surveillance renter of an assembly hall, or the anti-surveillance owner of a café, might wish to conduct a public demonstration of how face recognition works, to persuade an audience to support legislation that bans government use of face recognition. Thus, while EFF the recently enacted ban on of face recognition in Portland, Oregon, we did not support that city’s simultaneously enacted ban on of face recognition within public accommodations.Corporations based in the United States have a of selling key surveillance technology, used to aid in oppression, to authoritarian governments. This has harmed journalists, human rights defenders, ordinary citizens, and democracy advocates. The Chinese tech corporation Huawei reportedly is building face recognition software to notify government authorities when a camera identifies a person. There is risk that, without effective accountability measures, U.S. corporations will sell face recognition technology to authoritarian governments.In collaboration with leading organizations tracking the sale of surveillance technology, we recently filed a asking the U.S. to uphold the ability of non-U.S. residents to sue U.S. corporations that aid and abet human rights abuses abroad. The case concerns the , which allows foreign nationals to hold U.S.-based corporations accountable for their complicity in human rights violations.To prevent such harms before they occur, businesses selling surveillance technologies to governments should implement a “ before any sale is executed or service provided. Significant portions of this framework are already required through the and Given the inherent risks associated with face recognition, U.S. companies should be especially wary of selling this technology to foreign states.EFF will continue to advocate for bans on of face recognition, and adoption of that protects each of us from of our biometric information by private entities. You can join us in this fight by working with others to advocate for stronger protections and signing our About Face to end face government use of face recognition technology.Share ItBy unanimous vote, San Francisco's public records appeals body ruled last night that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) violated state and local laws when it failed to respond adequately to EFF's requests for documents about face recognition and the department's relationship with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC),...SAN FRANCISCO – On Wednesday, June 1, at 5 p.m. PT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify against the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) at the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force meeting. EFF filed a complaint against the SFPD for withholding records about a controversial investigation involving the use...In the hands of police and other government agencies, face recognition technology presents an to our privacy, free expression, information security, and social justice. Our faces are unique identifiers that can’t be left at home, or replaced like a stolen ID or compromised password. The technology facilitates...It is critically important that lawmakers stand up to protect their constituents from the abuse of biometric information, through strong laws with strong enforcement. That’s why we were proud to last week of Maryland’s , which would give Marylanders much-needed protections against unwanted biometric...First, the Internal Revenue Service from its that it was partnering with ID.me, a third-party identity verification service, to use facial recognition for verification of users managing many aspects of their taxes online. Now, ID.me—which provides identity verification services for dozens of government agencies—says...With the Snowden revelations in 2013 on NSA spying, many who were outraged sought to channel their frustrations first into mobilizing protests against state surveillance, and then into organizing local groups in defense of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. From this initial mobilization, ...Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today the Supreme Court today to review and reverse a in United States v. Tuggle finding that police didn’t need a warrant to secretly record all activity in front of someone’s home 24 hours a day, for a...Facebook announced it is, for now, , which created face prints of users and automatically recognized them in uploaded photos. The decision to end the program comes at a time when face recognition technology is receiving push back, criticisms, and legislative bans across the...Face recognition technology is a special menace to privacy, racial justice, free expression, and information security. Our faces are unique identifiers, and most of us expose them everywhere we go. And unlike our passwords and identification numbers, we can’t get a new face. So, governments and businesses, often working in...As technology evolves at a dizzying speed, new uses and terminologies seem to develop daily. On this page, we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonly used terms. For more information on government use of face recognition and how to end it in your...Share It

Email updates on news, actions,and events in your area.DEEPLINKS BLOGShare ItGovernment and private use of face recognition technology each present a wealth of concerns. Privacy, safety, and amplification of carceral bias are just some of the reasons why we must ban government use.But what about private use?&nbsp;It also can exacerbate injustice, including its use by police contractors, establishments, business improvement districts, and .Still, EFF does not support banning private use of the technology. Some users may choose to deploy it to lock their mobile devices or to demonstrate the...

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Why EFF Doesn’t Support Bans On Private Use of Face Recognition

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