SHOULD FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGIES BE BANNED?
Facial recognition technology is a threat to civil liberties Facial recognition technology is a useful tool for law enforcement
Facial recognition surveillance is a growing threat to constitutionally protected free speech, privacy, racial justice, and information security. We need strict federal, state and local laws to ban law enforcement's use of it.
Companies like Clearview AI provide facial recognition services to police with little to no public oversight. Clearview claims to have amassed a data set of more than 20 billion images by scraping millions of websites, including news media and sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo without ever seeking users' consent.
The company can even scan for faces in videos on social media sites, not just static photos. Using Clearview's services, police can identify people in photographs and videos and learn significant, highly personal information about them.
Police abuse of this technology is not just theoretical: it's already happening. Law enforcement already has used facial recognition on public streets and at political demonstrations to surveil protestors' First Amendment-protected activities; for example, police in Baltimore and Miami used the technology to identify participants in Blackled demonstrations against police violence.
Florida agencies used facial recognition thousands of times to try to identify unknown suspects without ever informing those suspects or their attorneys about the practice. And the Los Angeles Police Department in 2020 barred officers and detectives from using outside facial recognition platforms in their investigations after discovering a handful of detectives had used Clearview without permission.
Law enforcement agencies often argue they must have access to new technology — no matter how invasive to people's privacy — to help solve the most heinous crimes. Clearview itself has said it “exists to help law enforcement agencies solve the toughest cases.”
But police already use this technology for minor crimes. Officers in Clifton, N.J., used Clearview to identify shoplifters and a good Samaritan, and a lieutenant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, told a colleague to “feel free to run wild with your searches,” including using the technology on family and friends. Officers from coast to coast used it without departmental knowledge or oversight.
Widespread use of facial recognition technology by the government, especially to identify people secretly when they're out in public, will fundamentally change our society by chilling and deterring people from exercising their First Amendment rights to speak, assemble, and associate with others. Countless studies have shown that when people think the government is watching them, they alter their behavior to avoid scrutiny — a burden falling disproportionately upon communities of color, immigrants, religious minorities, and other marginalized groups.
The right to speak anonymously and associate with others without the government watching is fundamental to a democracy. It's not just civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that say so: America's Founding Fathers used pseudonyms in the Federalist Papers to debate what kind of government we should form. And the Supreme Court consistently has recognized that anonymous speech and association are necessary for the First Amendment right to free speech to be at all meaningful.
Clearview has expanded its reach to the battlefield, making headlines by providing its service free of charge to Ukraine. But introducing such technology into the life-or-death realm of a war zone could have significant negative consequences by providing a means for psychological warfare and leading to future abuses that could spiral out of control.
U.S. communities are pushing back. Localities across the nation as well as states including California, Washington, Massachusetts and New York have enacted bans or moratoria on at least some of the most egregious government uses of facial recognition. And congressional hearings have revealed bipartisan objection to carte blanche use of facial recognition by the police.
EFF continues to support legislation and litigation to curb use of facial recognition. Without an official moratorium or ban in place, police use of this technology is likely to expand throughout our communities.
It's time to reach out to city councilmembers, county supervisors, and state and federal legislators to demand meaningful restrictions on police use of facial recognition. We need to stop the government from using and abusing this technology to chill our cherished freedoms before it's too late.
Senate Bill introduced by Sen. Steven Bradford, D-San Pedro, which would indefinitely ban incorporating facial recognition technology into body camera systems
What if law enforcement had the ability, using proven and highly accurate technology, to identify potential suspects after a crime was committed or when someone, like a child, goes missing?
If we were referring to the application of DNA evidence in crime solving, technology widely used for decades by law enforcement, it would be a nobrainer.
By contrast, law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology (FRT), although it serves many of the same public safety purposes in similar applications as forensic DNA evidence — including helping to exonerate the innocent as well as convicting the guilty — is met with largely unfounded skepticism.
Recent high-profile examples highlight how facial recognition technology serves the public good.
When rioters stormed the United States Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election, facial recognition technology helped — using publicly available images — to reveal the potential identities of individuals involved in the mayhem.
Following Russia's unprovoked attack, the Ukrainian government effectively used FRT to identify deceased Russian soldiers, investigate the war crimes in Bucha and help with family reunification and refugee resettlement — all from publicly available information.
Of course, most practical applications of FRT in law enforcement scenarios would be less flashy though nonetheless crucial to the administration of justice, such as helping identify child predators, resolving cold case felonies and prosecuting financial crimes.
Despite the obvious benefits, several state and local government entities are either radically restricting or banning use of facial recognition technology, largely due to misconceptions on how FRT actually works.
Cutting edge companies like the one I founded, Clearview AI, recognize that FRT must be used for the best and highest purposes while proactively limiting any potential downsides.
We have developed the top-rated facial recognition technology in the U.S., as verified by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. Our algorithm can pick the correct person out of a lineup of 12 million photos with a staggering 99.85% accuracy rate, and works with substantially equal effectiveness regardless of race, age, gender or other demographic features.
Our image repository consists of public data that can be obtained by a typical Google search, sourced from news media, mugshot, public social media and other open sources.
This means that if the content of a social media post is made in private mode, it won't appear in search results.
Clearview AI's facial recognition database is only available to government agencies who may only use the technology to assist in the course of law enforcement investigations or in connection with national security. And law enforcement's use of FRT is not “real-time surveillance,” which is defined as the live monitoring of behavior.
We believe that FRT can be deployed in a way that protects fundamental freedoms and human rights, when used in an after the crime manner. In fact, accurate FRT can make police descriptions such as “a six-foot-one, African-American male” a thing of the past, creating a world with fewer unnecessary police interactions. Additionally, it promises to help overturn wrongful convictions, prevent discrimination, exonerate the innocent and eliminate the police lineup.
We encourage government entities to adopt common sense legislation and/or regulation, and best use practices.
Law enforcement agencies should make their facial recognition policies public, outlining the use cases, situations and types of crime for which they will use facial recognition.
Effective training protocols must be established and any facial recognition technology system must have an administrator to manage access and oversee the technology's use.
The system must have effective reporting tools that generate usage reports and audits.
Finally, users should never rely on the results of a facial recognition technology search as the sole means of identifying a suspect — each possible match must be confirmed by independent, corroborating information.
We're now in the 21st century's third decade. Facial recognition technology should be leveraged for good. With proper purpose, restraint and regulation, it can help solve crimes, aid victims and ultimately make the world a safer place.