Democrats and progressives in Congress reintroduced a bill on Tuesday that would ban the government from using facial recognition technology as increasing surveillance and police violence pose a threat to marginalized communities.
The bill would also prevent the government from using biometric technologies like voice and gait recognition, while providing individuals a legal pathway against having their biometric data used illegally. It was crafted in response to reports that facial recognition tools like Clearview AI have been used by law enforcement and government agencies to incriminate and arrest people, especially Black men, often over false accusations.
The bill was introduced by a group of 16 Democratic and progressive lawmakers, including Senators Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri). It has been endorsed by advocacy groups like the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Main Street Alliance and the ACLU.
As the lawmakers pointed out in a press release, research has found that facial recognition technology is extremely widespread.
According to a Georgetown University report from 2016, half of American adults’ faces are logged in law enforcement facial recognition databases. In 2019, federal researchers helped to expose the racism of these technologies, showing that Asian and Black people are up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men are — plastering on a layer of racial discrimination that already runs deep in policing.
“The year is 2023, but we are living through 1984. The continued proliferation of surveillance tools like facial recognition technologies in our society is deeply disturbing,” Markey said in a statement. “Biometric data collection poses serious risks of privacy invasion and discrimination, and Americans know they should not have to forgo personal privacy for safety. As we work to make our country more equitable, we cannot ignore the technologies that stand in the way of progress and perpetuate injustice.”
Government use of facial recognition technology is especially insidious because police and prosecutors are allowed to use such tools without even disclosing it in many parts of the U.S. This can often make the use of such technology difficult to defend against in criminal cases, defenders say, while giving police a justification to go after non-white people that the technology has labeled criminals, regardless of whether the designation is accurate.
In recent years, facial recognition and technology like gait recognition have also been used to arrest protesters; during the anti-police George Floyd protests in 2020, six separate federal agencies and police departments across the country used facial recognition thousands of times to identify — and sometimes arrest — protesters.
Advocates against facial recognition technology are warning that such tools could also be used to target trans people and abortion seekers as right-wing lawmakers seek to severely restrict bodily autonomy and eliminate trans people.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy