Cops Are Running Ring Camera Footage Through Their Own Facial Recognition Software Because Who's Going To Stop Them

from the ALL-DOORS-ARE-RECORDED dept

Ring may be holding off on adding facial recognition tech to its already-problematic security cameras, but that's not stopping any of its not-exactly-end-users from doing it for themselves.

Ring is swallowing up the doorbell camera market with aggressive marketing that includes the free use of taxpayer-funded services. It calls over 600 law enforcement agencies "partners." In exchange for agency autonomy and free cameras, police departments all over the nation are pushing cameras on citizens and asking them to upload anything interesting to Ring's "I saw someone brown in my neighborhood" app, Neighbors.

The company that has someone in charge of its facial recognition division Ring claims it's not using to implement facial recognition tech is handing out cameras like laced candy. Law enforcement agencies are snatching the cameras up. And they're snatching the footage up, using subpoenas to work around recalcitrant homeowners. Once they have the footage, they can keep it forever and share it with whoever they want.

They can also run the footage through whatever hardware or software they have laying around, as Caroline Haskins reports for BuzzFeed.

Amazon does not offer the ability to recognize faces in footage on its Ring doorbell cameras. But just one month after police in Chandler, Arizona, received 25 surveillance cameras for free from the company, the department's then–assistant chief discussed using its own facial recognition technology on Ring footage at a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, according to his slideshow obtained in a public records request.

In an April presentation titled “Leveraging Consumer Surveillance Systems,” Jason Zdilla discussed various consumer surveillance devices and platforms. Examples cited in the presentation included Ring cameras and the Neighbors app.

It's the perfect storm of unaccountability. Footage can be obtained from Ring with a subpoena. Ring hands it over with zero strings attached. Cop shop runs it through the Zoom Enhancer and any databases it has or has access to. Bingo: facial recognition in cameras supplied by a company that says it's not all that into facial recognition at the moment.

Now, you may be wondering why this is a big deal. Why does any of this matter when other surveillance systems with cloud storage are likely similarly responsive to subpoenas and place no restrictions on footage they hand over to law enforcement?

Well, two things: first, Ring claims all footage belongs to camera owners, but treats camera owners as if they're not a stakeholder when it comes to sharing their recordings with the government.

Second -- and far more importantly -- Ring aggressively courts police departments as "partners," turning consumer products into unofficial extensions of existing government camera networks. Ring hands out free cameras to cops and hands out even more freebies if cops convince homeowners to download the Neighbors app and share as much footage as possible. Ring also takes control of all PR efforts and official statements involving Ring doorbells that cops have given to citizens. And Ring coaches cops how to obtain footage without having to trouble the courts with a warrant.

This is unlike any other company in the home security business. Ring's assimilation of hundreds of law enforcement agencies blurs the line between public and private in the name of commerce. Taxpayers are contributing to their own co-opting into a surveillance mesh network propelled by one of the largest companies in the world. This isn't acceptable. But the longer Ring's expansion remains unchecked, the sooner its behavior will become normalized. And once it's normalized, it's over.

Filed Under: cameras, doorbells, facial recognition, police, ring
Companies: amazon, ring

Ring Coyness About Adding Facial Recognition Tech To Its Cameras Doesn't Extend To Its Marketing Materials

from the unreasonable-suspicion dept

Ring may say it's not getting into the facial recognition business, but its internal documents say otherwise. The company has a head of facial recognition tech in its Ukraine office. And its answers to Senator Edward Markey's questions make it clear Ring hasn't ruled out adding this tech to its doorbell cameras. Specifically, the company said it had no plans at the present but was always looking to "innovate" to meet "customer demand."

Documents obtained by The Intercept show Ring is still "innovating," even if there's no apparent customer demand for facial recognition tech. Sam Biddle has the details:

Ring, Amazon's crimefighting surveillance camera division, has crafted plans to use facial recognition software and its ever-expanding network of home security cameras to create AI-enabled neighborhood “watch lists,” according to internal documents reviewed by The Intercept.

The planning materials envision a seamless system whereby a Ring owner would be automatically alerted when an individual deemed “suspicious” was captured in their camera’s frame, something described as a “suspicious activity prompt.”

In the mockup seen by The Intercept, "suspicious" apparently translates to "shabbily dressed man." This person is shown walking past a garage-mounted camera (which the company says users shouldn't point at public areas like streets and sidewalks) with the alert "This person appears to be acting suspicious."

Dress better, citizens. Otherwise, your image might be uploaded to Ring's snitch app, Neighbors, where local randos can collectively gin up fear and sic the cops on you. Nowhere in the document does Ring define what triggers its "suspicion" sensors.

Here's where the facial recognition tech is pitched but never named specifically:

A third potentially invasive feature referenced in the Ring documents is the addition of a “proactive suspect matching” feature, described in a manner that strongly suggests the ability to automatically identify people suspected of criminal behavior — again, whether by police, Ring customers, or both is unclear — based on algorithmically monitored home surveillance footage. Ring is already very much in the business of providing — with a degree of customer consent — valuable, extrajudicial information to police through its police portal. A “proactive” approach to information sharing could mean flagging someone who happens to cross into a Ring video camera’s frame based on some cross-referenced list of “suspects,”

Ring may not have facial recognition tech built in (yet), but plenty of police departments utilize or have access to this software. Any images or footage shared with law enforcement agencies -- either voluntarily by Ring owners or acquired with a subpoena from the company -- can be subjected to facial recognition tech and placed on a Ring-enabled "watchlist."

Ring remains mostly a dump pipe in this scenario, but its aggressive marketing to law enforcement suggests it wants its 600+ government partners to take advantage of the tools they have on hand to make the most of footage cops are invited to download and hold onto indefinitely. Ring can then remain in a state of plausible deniability when being questioned by critics and/or Congress while still giving hundreds of law enforcement agencies all the reason they need to act as Ring brand ambassadors.

Filed Under: doorbells, facial recognition, ring, ring doorbells
Companies: amazon, ring

ACLU Sues DOJ Over Facial Recognition Documents

from the catching-some-heat-from-backburnered-requesters dept

It's no secret the federal government is using facial recognition tech. The DHS wants to use it at all ports of entry (including airports) on pretty much every traveler. Amazon wants every government agency possible to buy its version of the tech, even as the company (and the agencies it hopes to supply) undergo Congressional investigations. And the FBI's facial recognition database has been growing steadily since 2014, outpacing required Privacy Impact Assessments and the FBI's willingness to vet the accuracy of its search tools.

The public would definitely like to know more about the government's use of biometric tracking, but the government's way less interested in talking about it. The ACLU filed a FOIA request in January seeking biometric/facial recognition documents held by the FBI and DEA. Those requests have been ignored for 10 months.

The ACLU is now suing these federal agencies. The feds' deafening silence echoes against a backdrop of enacted facial recognition bans in a handful of cities and one statewide ban on use of the tech in police body cameras. The lawsuit [PDF] points out both agencies refused to give the ACLU's request expedited processing and the DEA went so far as to grant itself a 10-day extension to respond. That 10-day period stretched into 60 days before the DEA sent its second response -- one that stated none-too-believably that the ACLU's request was "being handled as expeditiously as possible."

The complaint asks for a judge to order the immediate release of responsive records, an injunction preventing the agencies from charging the ACLU processing fees, and attorney fees in the event the ACLU wins its suit.

The attached FOIA request shows how much information is already in the public domain, which will make it very difficult for the feds to claim they don't have responsive documents. Facial recognition is the government's new kudzu. It's everywhere and it just keeps growing.

The FBI… operates the Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System, which a 2016 Government Accountability Office report described as “a face recognition service that allows law enforcement agencies to search a database of over 30 million photos to support criminal investigations.”

[...]

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides cloud services for all 17 United States intelligence agencies, including the DOJ and its component agencies the FBI and DEA.5 According to recent media reporting, the FBI is testing Amazon’s Rekognition face recognition product, which is part of the suite of software products available on AWS, in a pilot program. In May 2018, the intelligence community awarded Microsoft a contract enabling all 17 agencies to use Azure Government, Microsoft’s cloud service for public entities. Microsoft, like Amazon, offers its customers a face surveillance product that runs on its own cloud service; Microsoft’s face surveillance product is called Face API. Additionally, as of 2015, the FBI has utilized NEC Corporation of America’s “Integra ID 5 biometric solution software,” which provides facial recognition capabilities, in conjunction with the agency’s NGI system.

Hopefully, the ACLU will succeed. Public records requests are pretty much the only way the public can access details about the government's surveillance plans and tech tools. The FBI and DEA aren't willing to discuss these openly but they're more than willing to deploy them against the same public these agencies insist have no business asking what the government's up to.

Filed Under: doj, facial recognition, foia
Companies: aclu

Australia's Idiotic War On Porn Returns, This Time Using Facial Recognition

from the this-isn't-going-to-work-out-you-ninnies dept

For years now, governments around the world have attempted to block, filter, or otherwise restrict the public's access to porn. And for just as long those efforts have routinely and repeatedly fallen flat on their face. Whether it's the UK's bungled and incoherent plan to employ age-checks to restrict porn access, or Utah's seemingly endless efforts to fiter porn entirely, history is filled with examples of how trying to thwart porn simply doesn't work. Filters are easy to bypass and tend to cause more problems than they solve. Waging war on porn at scale always ends in wasted money and headaches.

Apparently learning nothing from that time a teenage kid bypassed Australia's $89 million porn filters in a matter of minutes, Australia's back with a new idea to combat porn: restricting access to it via the use of facial recognition technology:

"Under the proposal from the Department of Home Affairs, a computer user’s face would be matched to images from official identity documents. It does not say how the user would submit a facial image at the beginning of each online session."

Obviously the government retaining a massive database of not only citizen facial scans -- but who is or isn't watching porn -- isn't being received well by privacy advocates. A parliamentary committee of the Australian House of Representatives began an inquiry last month fielding feedback on the effectiveness of age verification systems for adult websites and internet gambling. A filing from Australia's Department of Home Affairs championed the idea, suggesting an expansion of the government's existing facial recognition database to restrict access to online porn.

Beyond that, it's pretty clear that nobody can really explain how it will work, which is always a good sign for these types of efforts. And nobody in the Australian government wants to actually own or even talk about the dumb plan:

"The Department of Home Affairs did not respond to questions about the proposal, and the attorney general’s office, when asked to comment on the legal ramifications of the system, directed all questions to Home Affairs."

It's not clear how many times we need to go through this before governments realize that restricting access to internet porn on any meaningful scale is not only impossible given technical countermeasures like proxies or VPNs, it usually results in more problems than it causes -- be that legitimate websites being caught in the filter trap, or collected data being compromised by hackers or used by governments in ways not originally advertised.

In about two years after millions are wasted, Australia will shelve the project and lives will go on, with people worried about illegal underage access to porn doing what they should have done from the start: a little thing called responsible parenting.

Filed Under: australia, facial recognition, internet, moral panic, porn

Company Threatens To Sue NBC For Reporting On Its Facial Recognition Tech Being Used Against Palestinians

from the how-not-to-handle-journalists dept

Earlier this week, NBC News had quite a story about a facial recognition tech company in Israel, named AnyVision, that is being used by the Israeli military to conduct surveillance on Palestinians in the West Bank. Much of the article focuses on the fact that Microsoft invested in AnyVision, at a time when Microsoft claims it's been taking the moral high ground and unwilling to work on more nefarious uses of things like facial recognition technology. The story hits on a bunch of different points that we regularly cover at Techdirt, from misuses of facial recognition to large company hypocrisy. But we're writing about it for a different reason: the way that AnyVision's CEO reacted upon being contacted by NBC reporters:

When NBC News first approached AnyVision for an interview, CEO Eylon Etshtein denied any knowledge of "Google Ayosh," threatened to sue NBC News and said that AnyVision was the “most ethical company known to man.” He disputed that the West Bank was “occupied” and questioned the motivation of the NBC News inquiry, suggesting the reporter must have been funded by a Palestinian activist group.

As a general rule, when reporters come calling, asking for comment on a questionable thing your company may be engaged in, don't threaten to sue. Also, generally speaking, calling yourself the "most ethical company known to man" probably throws up some red flags too (as does the denial of a program that NBC had documentation about...). All that really does is tell a reporter that they're on to something.

The story itself, of course, raises all sorts of questions about how governments, law enforcement, and the military might use facial recognition -- a technology that still hasn't been proven to be particularly accurate. There's a reason why many places are banning the use of the technology by law enforcement. At the very least, any such use deserves public discussion and scrutiny -- not bogus threats of lawsuits.

Filed Under: eylon etshtein, facial recognition, israel, journalism, palestinians, surveillance, threats
Companies: anyvision, microsoft, nbc

India Looking To Be The Next China, Sends Out Call For Bids On Massive Facial Recognition Program

from the a-testing-environment-containing-1.3-billion-subjects dept

India must be looking across the border at China and nodding approvingly. India is rolling up the global censorship charts, firing off thousands of takedown demands and court orders to American social media companies. The government also seems overly-concerned with "fake news" and has been abusing its national security laws to make social media posts (and sometimes their posters) disappear into the ether.

Tech advancements are increasing the capabilities of the government's multiple surveillance networks. The most immediate beneficiary has been the country's law enforcement, which has added pre-crime analytics to a tool chest containing thousands of cameras and their biometric add ons.

Citizens are also being saddled with digital IDs based on their fingerprints. The tech doesn't work as well as dozens of sci-fi movies led us to believe. The end result is people being unable to convince the government they are who they say they are, thanks to faulty tech or fingerprints that aren't in perfect enough shape to talk print readers into responding appropriately. This had led to people losing access to public assistance, sending the nation's most vulnerable residents into tailspins they may never recover from.

Since this modernization is all going so well, the Indian government wants to expand its biometric collections. The country is seeking to assemble one of the world's largest facial recognition databases, as well as everything needed to make use of it, including cellphone apps for cops running scans and searches while on patrol.

The daunting scope of the proposed network is laid out in a detailed 172-page document published by the National Crime Records Bureau, which requests bids from companies to build the project. Interested parties had until October 11 to submit their proposal.

Currently unnamed, the project would match images from the country's growing network of CCTV cameras against a database encompassing mug shots of criminals, passport photos and images collected by agencies such as the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

It's being done for the children. Or, at least, that's one of the talking points. New Delhi police have been using existing databases to identify and locate some of the country's 300,000 missing children. While this effort is noble and well-intentioned, the expansion of this to encompass pretty much anyone who walks past a government camera is a problem. This isn't about maintaining criminal databases to track suspects who are being sought by the government. It's about adding everyone to the database as quickly as possible and giving law enforcement discretionary access.

According to the bid solicitation document [PDF], this database will be filled with images in bulk from a large number of sources. Here's part of the requested feature list:

Capture face images from CCTV feed and generate alerts if a blacklist match is found.

Add photographs obtained from newspapers, raids, sent by people, sketches etc. to the criminal’s repository tagged for sex, age, scars, tattoos, etc. for future searches.

The system should have option to upload bulk subject images and generate alerts if any of the subject images matches with the registered faces in the database.

The proposed FRS system should have option to input face images in JPEG, PNG etc. image and search and generate face matches with the stored database.

The government wants something it may not be able to have, at least not as soon as it would like it. It wants a database filled with as many photos as it can upload and software that can match faces quickly, even if the person requesting it is a police officer carrying nothing more powerful than a mobile phone in an area with sketchy service. The bid document says the government expects database search results in 3 seconds or less, no matter where the search is performed or what device is being used.

The system shall be able to broadly match a suspect/criminal photograph with database created using photograph images available with Passport, CCTNS, ICJS and Prisons, Ministry of women and child development (KhoyaPaya) State or National Automated Fingerprint Identification System or any other image database available with police/other entity. Match suspected criminal face from pre-recorded video feeds obtained from CCTVs deployed in various critical identified locations, or with the video feeds received from private or other public organization’s video feeds.

The system should also auto-refresh database contents every 30 minutes to ensure anyone using it has access to the latest uploads. The government is also demanding the contractor provide the "latest and the best solution/algorithm of facial configuration."

The Indian government is asking for everything. The winning vendor will have 30 weeks to design and deploy the system. The government wants it live less than eight months after the contract is signed. Given the timetable, it's likely the Indian government will end up with something that doesn't work as well as it wants to, but will involve 1.3 billion beta testers. No worries though. It will only be people's freedom and privacy on the line when the system rolls out, turning India into China 2.0, but with less stress testing and more "we actually care about privacy" talking points.

Filed Under: facial recognition, india, privacy, surveillance

California Governor Signs Bill Banning Facial Recognition Tech Use By State's Law Enforcement Agencies

from the coastal-elite-cops-now-complaining-about-coastal-elites dept

California has become the first state in the US to ban facial recognition tech use by local cops. Matt Cagle has more details on the ACLU-backed law.

Building on San Francisco's first-of-its-kind ban on government face recognition, California this week enacted a landmark law that blocks police from using body cameras for spying on the public. The state-wide law keeps thousands of body cameras used by police officers from being transformed into roving surveillance devices that track our faces, voices, and even the unique way we walk. Importantly, the law ensures that body cameras, which were promised to communities as a tool for officer accountability, cannot be twisted into surveillance systems to be used against communities.

As Cagle points out, San Francisco was the first city in the nation to ban use of facial recognition by city agencies. Oakland followed closely behind. And all the way on the other side of the country, Somerville, Massachusetts became the second city in the US to enact a facial recognition ban.

This statewide ban will hopefully lead to others around the nation. The tech multiple companies are pushing government agencies to adopt is unproven, at best. The rate of false positives in live deployments is alarming. Just as alarming is the flipside: false negatives that allow the people, who law enforcement agents are actually looking for, to slip away. Despite this, everyone from the DHS to local police departments thinks this is the next wave of acceptable surveillance -- one that allows government agencies to, in essence, demand ID from everyone who passes by their cameras.

The resistance to facial recognition's seemingly-unchecked expansion is finally having some effect. Axon (formerly Taser) has temporarily halted its plans to introduce facial recognition tech into its body cameras and Google is stepping away from its development of this tech for government agencies. Unfortunately, Amazon has shown no desire to step away from the surveillance state precipice and is continuing to sell its own brand of facial recognition to law enforcement agencies as well as co-opting citizens' doorways into its surveillance network with its Ring doorbell/cameras.

It's a solid win for residents of the state. The ban blocks the use of facial recognition tech by state law enforcement until the end of 2022. It also blocks the use of other biometric surveillance tech and prevents law enforcement from using existing biometric data to feed any predictive policing tools agencies might be using or planning on implementing. With more states and cities willing to at least undertake serious discussions of the implications of facial recognition tech, it's unlikely California will remain the odd state out in the biometric surveillance race.

Filed Under: california, facial recognition, gavin newsom, law enforcement

New French Mandate Will Use Facial Recognition App To Create 'Secure Digital IDs'

from the downloadable-panopticon-portal dept

Facial recognition tech is considered at least mildly controversial in the United States. Certain federal agencies (like the DHS) are pushing for widespread deployment even as Congress members are raising questions about the tech's accuracy and reliability. Meanwhile, facial recognition bans are being introduced and enacted at the city and state level, showing there's no nationwide consensus that the tech is trustworthy, useful, or non-invasive.

Citizens and privacy groups have similar concerns in France, but the French government apparently doesn't care. In the name of "security," the government is adding facial recognition tech to its national ID program, as Helene Fouquet reports for Bloomberg.

France is poised to become the first European country to use facial recognition technology to give citizens a secure digital identity -- whether they want it or not.

Saying it wants to make the state more efficient, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is pushing through plans to roll out an ID program, dubbed Alicem, in November, earlier than an initial Christmas target.

This move by the Interior Ministry is already being challenged in court by privacy group La Quadrature du Net. Unfortunately, this challenge isn't preventing the rollout of the French government's Android app, which will be the only way for residents to create a digital ID that can be used to access government services.

An ID will be created through a one-time enrollment that works by comparing a user’s photo in their biometric passport to a selfie video taken on the app that will capture expressions, movements and angles. The phone and the passport will communicate through their embedded chips.

Because this digital ID is a mandatory possession, opponents have pointed out it violates consensual data collection provisions put in force by the GDPR. But that's far from the only problem. Facial recognition tech still doesn't work as well as its proponents claim, which is going to result in residents either being unable to create an ID the government will accept or possibly find themselves accused of ID fraud if the government side of the tech thinks they're someone else.

And then there's the security of the program itself. It's supposed to make French citizens more "secure," but the government hasn't impressed anyone with its claims of "highest, state level" security. Its own encrypted messaging platform was compromised in less than two hours by a security researcher, allowing the researcher to create accounts at will and harvest sensitive data from existing accounts. A bug bounty was rolled out shortly after that. There has been no offer of a bug bounty or any invitation to stress test the "state level" security of the government's latest app -- one that will be used by roughly 100% of the country's residents.

Potential damage will be mitigated by the catch-and-release nature of the data collection. Once an ID is created, the government will apparently delete the data it has collected and everything stored locally by the app on the user's device will vanish after the enrollment is complete and the app has been deleted. But some data is still being stored somewhere so citizens can use their new digital IDs to access government services, although the government insists biometric info from Alicem won't make its way to other government databases.

Even if everything the government claims is true, this rollout -- one that occurred without public comment and does not give residents any way to opt out -- will make it easier for the government to introduce more intrusive facial recognition programs. If this digital ID program runs smoothly and does what's advertised, it will lower resistance to government use of biometric scanning and tracking in the future. After all, if something worked well once during a minimal, controlled rollout, it might work again when there's more at stake and fewer controls on collection and retention of biometric info. Surveillance creep is still a thing. And it always has a starting point few people find objectionable.

Filed Under: facial recognition, france, id, privacy, secure digital ids

Welcome To A World Of 500-Megapixel Cameras, And Surveillance Systems Able To Zoom In On Small Objects A Kilometer Away

from the coming-soon-to-a-smartphone-near-you dept

Here on Techdirt, we love digital technology. We love how Moore's Law and its equivalents help drive continual innovation and open up interesting new uses and possibilities. But powerful technology is just a tool, and like any other tool it can be used in good and bad ways. Which brings us to this latest piece of high-tech wizardry: a 500-megapixel cloud-based camera system with built-in AI, developed in China. The English-language Global Times, which is closely aligned with the views of the Chinese government, explains one possible use of such a system:

For example, in a stadium with tens of thousands of people, the camera can shoot a panoramic photo with a clear image of every single human face, the report said.

When integrated with AI, facial recognition, real-time monitoring and cloud computing technology, the camera can detect and identify human faces or other objects based on massive data and instantly find specific targets, according to the report.

The article notes that the camera's impressive capabilities could be applied to "national defense, military and public security". Well, yes, now you come to mention it, they probably could. But it would be wrong to think that only China is active in this field. The Japanese company Fujifilm is also working on surveillance systems with extreme specifications:

The SX800, the first to be launched in this initiative, is a long-range surveillance camera with 40x optical zoom to cover the focal length range from 20mm to 800mm. When combined with the digital zoom of up to 1.25x, the camera can reach the focal length equivalent to 1000mm in long-range surveillance. This means it can capture the vehicle registration plate on a car at about 1km away. Fujifilm's proprietary image stabilization mechanism accurately controls camera shake without any time lag.

It's easy to imagine how 500-megapixel cameras, or surveillance systems that can zoom in on details a kilometer away, might be abused by governments or companies to carry out new levels of covert surveillance. Moreover, there's no sign yet of any slowdown in the constantly increasing power of digital technology. It's only a matter of time before there are 5-gigapixel cameras, or surveillance systems that can zoom in on details ten kilometers away.

As well as producing more powerful systems at the top end of the market, Moore's Law and its equivalents mean that yesterday's leading-edge technology often becomes something found routinely on tomorrow's smartphones. Here's further evidence of that trend:

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today introduced 108 megapixel (Mp) Samsung ISOCELL Bright HMX, the first mobile image sensor in the industry to go beyond 100 million pixels.

The 108-megapixel component was jointly developed with the Chinese company Xiaomi, which said: "We are very pleased that picture resolutions previously available only in a few top-tier DSLR cameras can now be designed into smartphones." Smartphones with 100-megapixel cameras is an exciting prospect, but also one that is bound to bring with it new problems, as Techdirt will doubtless be reporting in due course.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Filed Under: cameras, china, facial recognition, high resolution, surveillance

California Senate Passes Statewide Ban On Facial Recognition Tech Use By Law Enforcement

from the more-of-this-please dept

San Francisco has already banned the use of facial recognition tech by local law enforcement. Oakland did the same thing a couple of months later. Pretty soon, it's not going to matter where you are in California. If you're a law enforcement agency, facial recognition tech is off-limits. Here's the latest news on the biometric front from the EFF.

A.B. 1215, authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting, prohibits the use of face recognition, or other forms of biometric technology, on a camera worn or carried by a police officer in California for three years. The Assembly passed an earlier version of the bill with a 45-17 vote on May 9. Today’s vote of the Senate was 22-15. We are pleased that the Senate has listened to the growing number of voices who oppose the way government agencies use face surveillance.

The bill doesn't just ban facial recognition tech. It also targets other biometric surveillance methods that have been enjoying the side benefits of mission creep over the past several years.

(1) “Biometric data” means a physiological, biological, or behavioral characteristic that can be used, singly or in combination with each other or with other information, to establish individual identity.

(2) “Biometric surveillance system” means any computer software or application that performs facial recognition or other biometric surveillance.

(3) “Facial recognition or other biometric surveillance” means either of the following, alone or in combination:

(A) An automated or semiautomated process that captures or analyzes biometric data of an individual to identify or assist in identifying an individual.

(B) An automated or semiautomated process that generates, or assists in generating, surveillance information about an individual based on biometric data.

It forbids direct use by California law enforcement agencies, as well as prevents them from asking agencies outside the state (including federal agencies) from deploying this tech on their behalf. It also blocks state agencies from using cameras (body, dash, stationary) that utilize this tech.

If this bill is signed into law, California will become the first state to ban this tech. Existing bans by two major cities make this decision a whole lot easier and greases the logistical wheels for statewide deployment. In doing so, state legislators are showing they recognize the negative effects of unchecked surveillance deployment. Much of what the state is seeking to curb is listed on the bill's statement of intent, which makes it clear this government isn't willing to sacrifice its citizens and their freedoms to make law enforcement's job a little easier.

The use of facial recognition and other biometric surveillance is the functional equivalent of requiring every person to show a personal photo identification card at all times in violation of recognized constitutional rights. This technology also allows people to be tracked without consent. It would also generate massive databases about law-abiding Californians, and may chill the exercise of free speech in public places.

In addition, facial recognition still isn't great at the thing it's supposed to do: recognize faces. Early adopters have been generally unconcerned about the tech's unreliability, putting the onus on citizens and legislators to rein it in before it does any major damage. So far, California seems to be ahead of the curve, limiting its use prior to law enforcement rollout.

Other cities and states can do the same thing, but as it stands now, only three cities in the US have bans in place. And two of them are in California. Hopefully more legislation like this is on the way elsewhere -- bans that put citizens ahead of government agencies and their innate desire to place the people they serve under surveillance.

Filed Under: california, facial recognition, law enforcement