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Cities in the United States have banned facial recognition, with varying degrees of severity. Although Portland, Oregon has banned facial recognition for all state and commercial purposes, others only restrict it from police use.
Some cities, like Detroit, have taken lighter measures, such as: For example, using facial recognition only when investigating violent crimes, while New York police could use it for crimes such as shoplifting.
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On October 9, a New York judge ruled in a package theft case that facial recognition identification could be used as evidence in the trial. However, he pointed out that lawmakers should restrict the use of the technology.
The judge cited concerns about freedom of speech, noting that facial recognition could be used to identify and track protesters - which both the NYPD and Miami police did in August.
These types of issues, and the urgency of facial recognition in general, have led to widespread calls for regulation, but there is debate among tech companies, lawmakers, and civil rights groups about where to draw the line.
The US doesn't have federal facial recognition regulations, so thousands of law enforcement agencies have to set their own boundaries. Proponents say this is a concern for civil liberties. While some members of Congress are proposing a perpetual statewide ban on police use, other bills suggest that an arrest warrant is still allowed or prevent only corporations from using it.
The police often see facial recognition as a necessary tool in solving the most heinous crimes such as terrorist attacks and violent assault. However, researchers have found that the technology is more widely used for low-level crime.
In a recent lawsuit, the NYPD found that it has turned to facial recognition in more than 22,000 cases over the past three years.
"Although the NYPD claims facial recognition is only used for serious crimes, the numbers tell a different story," said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project. "As facial recognition continues to grow, it's routinely used for everything from shoplifting to graffiti."
Asking for comment, a NYPD spokeswoman referred to a 2019 opinion article by Police Commissioner James O'Neill entitled "How Face Recognition Makes You Safer". In the play, O'Neill talked about how facial recognition was used to make arrests in murder, robbery, and rape cases, but he didn't reveal how often it was used for low-level crimes.
The department's facial recognition policy, set in March, allows the technology to be used for any crime, regardless of severity. Without borders, police have used the technology for petty theft more often than for dangerous crimes, say privacy advocates.
In front Amazon has imposed a moratorium on police use of its facial recognition softwareThe program was used in a $ 12 shoplifting case in Oregon in 2018. These cases are not highlighted in Amazon's marketing material detailing how the technology is used to find clues about victims of human trafficking.
At the Wall Street Journal's virtual Tech Live conference on October 20, Hoan Ton-That, CEO of Start of face recognition Clearview AIIt is not the company's responsibility to ensure that its technology is used properly by thousands of law enforcement partners.
Though the company has its own guidelines, Ton-That said Clearview AI would not enforce them, saying that "it's not our job to set the guidelines as a technology company".
Face recognition without limits
Before Detroit put its facial recognition policy in place, the technology resulted in the illegal arrest of at least two black men in the city - both of whom were falsely accused of being involved in theft cases.
Robert Williams was arrested in January on charges of stealing approximately $ 3,800 worth of watches after Detroit's facial recognition mistakenly matched surveillance footage with a photo of his driver's license. In May 2019, the same facial recognition program incorrectly identified Michael Oliver in a case of theft.
Face recognition is known to have racial prejudice, with researchers who find that the Artificial intelligence often misidentifies people with color and women.
If it can be used indefinitely by law enforcement agencies, the technology increases the chance of error and compromises privacy, said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, author of The Rise of Big Data Policing and a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia.
"Facial recognition should never be used for a misdemeanor or a low-level crime," Ferguson said. "Technologies that can destroy public privacy should be used sparingly and under strict controls."
With no restrictions, the police are free to use facial recognition at will, and in many cases arrested suspects are not even aware that the faulty technology was used.
Little did Williams know that Detroit police used facial recognition to find him until an investigator brought up the detail during their conversation. Lawyers representing protesters in Miami were unaware that police were using facial recognition when they were arrested, according to a report by NBC Miami. Police used facial recognition software in a $ 50 drug trafficking case in Florida in 2016, but did not mention it in the arrest report.
In an article published in October 2019, Ferguson recommended restricting facial recognition to serious crimes, much like police restrict the use of wiretapping. He said it was dangerous to assume that the police were allowed to use technology at will, and said doing so could harm people's privacy in the long run.
"This assumption is based on the fact that the cost of crime outweighs the cost of privacy, security and a growing imbalance in police force," Ferguson said. "Prosecuting low-level crimes at the expense of creating a comprehensive surveillance system may not be the balance society needs."
A total ban
Boundaries would be a welcome start, but privacy advocates argue that they are not enough.
Activists in Detroit are still working to get facial recognition banned in the city after the city council voted to renew its contract in September. The law enforcement agency's limits on reserving facial recognition for violent crimes came after months of protests, said Tawana Petty, director of the Data Justice Program for the Detroit Community Technology Project.
Because of the technology's track record in failure, she said, any use of the technology, even under the strictest of regulations, leaves the possibility of false attachments.
In a June city council meeting, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said that facial recognition software misidentified people 96% of the time without human intervention. By October 12, police had used facial recognition on black people approximately 97% of the time, according to the department's weekly report.
"My position is that there is the potential to imprison people for violent crimes they didn't commit," Petty said. "The technology is a dangerous assault on the civil liberties and privacy rights we all deserve to be protected."