Soon, California could become the largest state to forbid the use of facial recognition technology in law enforcement body cameras, an important milestone in the regulation of the booming technology.
The State Assembly passed AB 1215 last week, a bill that would force a three-year ban on the technology. The legislations, which recieved praise from both privacy and civil liberties advocates, now heads to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.
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Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future (a digital rights group that has advocated for a federal facial recognition ban along with a coalition of other groups) said in a statement to Fox News:
“This is a major victory for civil rights and civil liberties groups on the ground in California who are leading the fight to rein in invasive facial recognition surveillance.”
“But no one should be subjected to automated biometric surveillance––the ultimate Big Brother surveillance weapon––regardless of where they live. That’s why we’re calling on lawmakers at the local, state, and federal level to enact an outright ban facial recognition surveillance.”1
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Several other states are also contemplating actions to decrease or prevent the technology. According to Fox News:
- Massachusetts lawmakers are holding hearings this fall to consider a statewide moratorium on using facial recognition
- Michigan has two bipartisan bills to ban law enforcement from using the technology that are working their way through the state Legislature
- New York is considering legislation that would ban the technology from being deployed in schools1
A recent Pew Research Center poll found that the use of technology by law enforcement is controversial, even though a majority of Americans support it.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently conducted a test of Amazon’s face recognition software. The ACLU found that the software falsely matched 26 California state lawmakers to facial images from a set of 25,000 public arrest photographs. More than half of the false positives were people of color. Some lawmakers ( including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders) want to ban police use of the technology.
According to a recent report, motor vehicle departments across the country are taking personal information from drivers and selling it to a wide range of different businesses, including private investigators, generating millions in revenue.
Democratic Assembly member Phil Ting, the bill’s sponsor, said the technology is not ready for primetime. He told The Washington Post:
“Body cameras have been used as a tool to build trust between communities and law enforcement and to provide more transparency. Putting facial recognition software into those body cameras helps destroy that trust. It turns a tool of transparency and openness into a tool of 24-hour surveillance.”1
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Even though currently it isn’t a standard practice for police departments to use facial recognition in their body cameras, advocates worry that could change.
Some law enforcement groups claim the legislation will threaten the ability for police to do their jobs. Initially, the bill called for a complete ban on the technology in body cameras, but it was eventually scaled back to a three-year moratorium. The Riverside Sheriff’s Association wrote in a statement on the legislation:
“By banning this technology, California will be announcing to the nation and world that it doesn’t want our law enforcement officers to have the necessary tools they need to properly protect the public and attendees of these events.”1
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Earlier this year San Francisco, which is represeted by Ting, became the first city to ban police from using the technology. Oakland, Calif. and Somerville, Mass. later joined the ban.
If signed by Governor Newsom, the moratorium will go into effect on January 1 and last through the end of 2022.
