Facial recognition is facing lawsuits
The fight over our faces and privacy heads to court
The fight over the use of our faces is far from done.
A raging battle over controversial facial recognition software used by law enforcement and the civil rights of Americans might be heading to a courtroom.
The latest salvo includes the American Civil Liberties Union suing the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency for those federal agencies’ records to see if there is any secret surveillance in use nationwide. The lawsuit, filed Oct. 31, comes as organizations and law enforcement are going toe-to-toe over what is private and what isn’t.
A facial recognition system uses biometric software to map a person’s facial features from a video or photo. The system then tries to match the information on databases to verify someone’s identity. Police departments regularly use facial recognition to find potential crime suspects and witnesses by scanning through millions of photos; the software is used to provide surveillance at public venues such as concert halls and schools and used to gain access to specific properties.
Yet there’s organized opposition, buoyed after California passed a law that puts a temporary ban on police across the state from using facial
Terry Collins “Facial recognition technology is a ... tool of oppression that can’t be contained through traditional governance.”
Evan Selinger, privacy expert
recognition in body cameras. The move comes while more than half of Americans polled in a recent Pew Research Center survey trust that officers would use the software responsibly.
“Although more and more people are waking up to the fact that facial recognition technology is dangerous, the fight over how to regulate it will be long and hard,” said Evan Selinger, a privacy expert and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
When your face is the key
Facial recognition may increasingly become the new norm.
Apple’s iPhone uses its Face ID facial recognition authentication system to help unlock the device for users, and is the subject of a $1 billion lawsuit. Social media giant Facebook uses facial recognition to recognize when members or their friends are tagged in photos. Some U.S. airports use facial recognition scanners in cooperation with the government to improve how travelers enter and exit the U.S., and some major airlines use facial recognition to help passengers check-in flights, luggage and boarding.
Currently, there are no federal regulations on the use of this technology for commercial or government use.
The problems with facial recognition
In some case, how you look may matter now more than ever before.
“If the American way of life is going to be preserved – free speech, free association and free movement – the best (way) forward is to acknowledge that, at present, facial recognition technology is a uniquely threatening tool of oppression that can’t be contained through traditional governance,” Selinger said. Along with Woodrow Hertzog, a professor of law and computer science at Northeastern University, Selinger has spent years studying the subject.
While Congress has held multiple hearings about whether to ban or regulate facial recognition, law enforcement contends that the software is an invaluable tool that can quickly root out dangerous people.
In one case, authorities in Pennsylvania last year used facial recognition to catch a man accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in 2016. Authorities used a driver’s license photo of the man who they said groped the girl at her home shortly after they met online.
According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, there are more than 640 million facial photos that are available for use that come from databases that can be searched by the Facial Analysis, Comparison, and Evaluation, also known as FACE, an internal unit of the FBI.
The GAO reports that the images come from state and federal databases including driver’s licenses and visa application photos. However, privacy advocates and several politicians counter that facial recognition violates Americans’ rights against government surveillance by scanning people without their permission.
Racial implications of facial recognition
Race is also at play when it comes to the criticism of using facial recognition. Three years ago, the ACLU revealed police agencies across the country had been monitoring protesters and activists by running photos on Facebook and Twitter through thirdparty facial recognition software. Police were using the software during the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the death of Michael Brown in 2014 and protests in Baltimore following the 2015 death of Freddie Gray to find protesters with outstanding warrants.
Privacy experts at Georgetown University once estimated that more than 117 million American adults are in facial recognition networks used by law enforcement and that African Americans would face more scrutiny, compared with other ethnicities.
Facial recognition laws and lawsuits
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., is co-sponsoring legislation prohibiting facial recognition in federally funded public housing. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, DMich., has introduced legislation banning using federal funds to purchase facial recognition technology.
The three federal agencies have declined to comment because of the lawsuit.