Bill to Ban Facial Recognition - ThreatWire Crosspost
Added 2020-06-30 18:07:25 +0000 UTCBy Shannon Morse, ThreatWire
A new bill was introduced on Thursday by US Senators Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, and US Representatives Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley that would ban the use of facial recognition by law enforcement nationwide. The bill is called the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act and it would give the federal government the ability to prohibit biometric surveillance without explicit statutory authorization, alongside withholding certain federal public safety grants from states or local governments that engage in biometric surveillance.
The entire bill and proposal is available to read online, linked below. Since the bill includes no specific end date, it would exist until a new law was passed that would allow for this kind of surveillance. The bill explicitly includes definitions for biometric surveillance systems, to include facial or other remote biometric recognition in real time or recorded, including voice recognition technology, and calls out the Byrne Grant Program, which allows for federal grants that give millions of dollars to state and local law enforcement.
It would exclude anything authorized by Congress but those exclusions would be required to be audited and purposes recorded, including accuracy requirements but none of these requirements are expressly given. The bill also states that any data obtained in violation of the bill would be thrown out in investigations and give plaintiffs the right to sue. In regards to the Byrne Grants, no state or local law enforcement would receive funding unless they complied with the law and set up their own policies to ban facial recognition.
This bill comes after several months of scrutiny and concerns that have been raised around facial recognition, as well as several cities already banning the use. As reported previously, many tech companies including IBM and Microsoft have chosen to put moratoriums on their own surveillance software or outright choosing to stop it’s development.
While this bill is just being introduced, it could be a major step for the US towards better privacy laws for citizens, no matter what city you live in.
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Links:
Facial recognition ban:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gkTcjFtieMQdsQ01dmDa49B6HY9ZyKr8/view
https://threatpost.com/nationwide-facial-recognition-ban-proposed-by-lawmakers/156928/
