The use of face surveillance technologies is fast becoming the norm in government and the private sector, but a new survey by the Brookings Institution shows agencies and companies deploying this technology are out of step with the desires of most Americans in rushing to deploy it without any restraints. An overwhelming majority—nearly 70 percent—of people surveyed said they support the regulation of face surveillance technology, with half calling for regulation of law enforcement’s use of the tool.
As privacy scholars Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Selinger recently argued, face surveillance is the “perfect tool for oppression.” The technology uses a type of biometric identification that traces the distance between points on faces to create face templates. These templates are then fed into algorithms which compare images of a person from a digital image or a video frame to a database of other images or templates, looking for a match.
Right now, small start-ups and big tech institutions like Amazon are marketing face surveillance tech to schools, shopping malls, app developers, and airports, while consumer-facing companies like Jet Blue, Live Nation, Nike, Apple, and Virgin are pushing the technology on us in public and private space, whether we want it or not. A web search for the words “face recognition technology in marketing” returns over 49 million results.
As Hartzog and Selinger write in their essay calling for a face surveillance ban, “The mere existence of facial recognition systems, which are often invisible, harms civil liberties, because people will act differently if they suspect they’re being surveilled.” The privacy scholars sketch out a short list of the harms that will inevitably befall us in a face-tracked world:
Clearly, the most threatening and dystopian deployments of face surveillance we will encounter arise in the government context. Face recognition technology in a CCTV-blanketed world enables perfect government surveillance, meaning it eradicates anonymity and privacy in public (and potentially even some private) space. This technology gives already unaccountable, discriminatory, and opaque government agencies like the police and federal intelligence agencies unprecedented power to invisibly create comprehensive and persistent records of people’s movements, interests and associations. It is the stuff of dystopian horror come to life.
Americans are rightfully concerned about this near-future world. The Brookings survey asked people about their views of face recognition in four contexts: retail stores, airports, stadiums, and schools. In no case did a majority of people surveyed feel favorably about the deployment of this technology. Half reported that they oppose the use of face surveillance technology in the retail context, while only 27 percent supported it. In the airport context, 44 percent expressed concern about using the technology for identification and security purposes, while only 31 percent supported it.
Despite these concerns, the federal government is plowing ahead with plans to deploy face surveillance systems in airports throughout the country. In September, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) released its roadmap for expanding biometrics in airports. Among other things, the report reveals that the agency plans to work with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to link up existing image and tracking systems, towards the end of using face surveillance to track people from the moment they step inside the airport until the moment they board their plane. The goal appears to be to replace all existing forms of identification with one: your face.
Fast technology, slow law
Exponential advances in processing power make these systems inexpensive and relatively easy to deploy, enabling persistent mass surveillance and tracking in real time and retroactively. The falling cost of computing power, storage, and web connected surveillance cameras removes a traditional limit on the government’s ability to deploy extensive networks built on this technology. But while the technology is developing rapidly, enabling the widespread deployment of face surveillance in all areas of our lives, the law has failed to keep pace. There is currently no federal law explicitly addressing the technology, and the vast majority of states have no statutes on the books protecting us from exploitative face tracking or repressive surveillance.
As Hartzog and Selinger argue in their call to arms against face surveillance technology, the deployment of these systems infringes on privacy and chills the exercise of protected speech, association, and religious activity, posing threats to individual rights and liberties and to the safety of communities of color, immigrants, and activists. For these reasons, the ACLU has joined with dozens of national and local civil rights and racial justice partners to call on major tech companies like Amazon to stop selling face surveillance systems to government agencies.
According to the Brookings survey, these civil society groups are acting in accordance with the views of most people in the country. If Brookings is right, half of Americans believe that there should be limits on the use of facial recognition software by law enforcement, and half of those surveyed said they oppose the creation of face surveillance databases. Nearly 70 percent want some form of government regulation.
Meanwhile, tech workers at companies building these dystopian technologies are raising the alarm, calling on their executives to stop selling them to law enforcement agencies. At a Wired conference this week, Jeff Bezos defended working with the government, arguing that if companies like Amazon refuse government contracts, “this country is going to be in trouble.” Bezos said controversial tools like Amazon’s face tracking Rekognition product, like the printing press, are “two sided.” “The book was invented,” he said, “and people could write really evil books and lead bad revolutions with them and create fascist empires with books.” Bezos argued that society’s “immune response” will “eventually” mitigate any harms arising from the use of persistent surveillance tools like Rekognition.
The day after Bezos made these astonishing comments, an anonymous Amazon employee published a public letter calling for his employer to stop selling face surveillance technology to the police. The concerns aren’t hypothetical, the employee wrote: “Amazon is designing, marketing, and selling a system for dangerous mass surveillance right now.” An immune system responds to attacks, but some attacks can be deadly. Face surveillance that undermines Americans’ ability to exercise our First Amendment rights could be the kind of attack that overwhelms our democratic immune system. For that reason, Amazon and other companies should stop selling it to government agencies until Congress and state legislatures can take meaningful action to protect the public from its inevitable harms.
The Brookings survey on Americans’ views of face recognition technology shows that, despite the current lack of regulation, people are increasingly aware of the dangers this technology poses. Now it’s up to us to translate that awareness into action.
This blog post was co-authored by Kade Crockford and Emiliano Falcon. Originally posted on Privacy SOS.
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Friday, October 19, 2018 - 2:15pm
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From slavery to Jim Crow laws and the so-called “war on drugs,” this country has long used forms of social control to oppress people of color, particularly Black, Latinx and Native Americans.
While police make arrests, district attorneys wield extraordinary power throughout the judicial process – from charging decisions to sentencing recommendations. Too often, this power is marked by systemic racism and racial bias. At our first district attorney candidates debate, we asked the candidates if they believe the policies and practices of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office have contributed to racial disparities – and all five candidates agreed that yes, they have.
Systemic racism and stereotypes dramatically shape our criminal legal system by disproportionately targeting and incarcerating people of color.
Racial bias, both implicit and explicit, sends and keeps more people of color in prisons than ever before. In Massachusetts, Black people are incarcerated at nearly eight times the rate of white people.
Just one force driving mass incarceration and incarceration disparities: bail. District attorneys can make requests for bail. Despite the presumption of innocence, the court will oblige the prosecutor’s request and order people to be held unless bail is paid. People who cannot afford bail must await trial in jail, and risk losing their jobs, housing, and social support.
The truth is, there are large racial disparities in who awaits trial in jail. In Barnstable County, Black residents make up just 2.4 percent of the population, but nearly one-quarter of all people detained pretrial. The same study also shows that people of color face much higher bail. Again, in Barnstable County, the median bail amount for Black people is four times higher than for white people. In Berkshire County, it’s five times higher.
Another driving force of these disparities is the use of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Massachusetts sentencing data shows that Black and Latino residents make up only 22 percent of Massachusetts population, yet the percentage of Black and Latino residents serving sentences for drug offenses is more than twice as high. Most disturbingly, however, the percentage triples when looking at people serving sentences for mandatory minimum drug offenses. This shocking disparity exists in the face of information that white people use and sell drugs at relatively similar rates as Black and Latino people.
Prosecutors across the country have begun acknowledging that they have a powerful role to play in unfair practices like bail, and recognizing they have a responsibility to reduce racial disparities in the criminal legal system by not prosecuting racially biased arrests. Prosecutors do not have to prosecute every case brought to them by police, and they make decisions every day about which cases to decline or pursue.
Massachusetts voters agree that the Commonwealth needs criminal law reform. In fact, 84 percent of voters think Massachusetts should work to change the criminal legal system so that people are not treated differently based on their race – and 79 percent say a commitment to racial justice is an important quality for a district attorney candidate.
We must demand that candidates and district attorneys commit to using their power responsibly, fairly, and justly – and that means working to eliminate racial disparities and bias in the criminal legal system. Recent elections across the country have shown the tremendous power that voters have to impact racial justice by electing forward-thinking district attorneys who have already started to implement groundbreaking changes to reduce incarceration and create a more fair and just system in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia.
To get involved and help make a change, sign up to volunteer. The ACLU of Massachusetts – together with its network of partners – will be organizing canvassing efforts to spread the word about What a Difference a DA Makes.
Written by Rahsaan Hall, director of the Racial Justice Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts and campaign manager for What a Difference a DA Makes.
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Monday, July 2, 2018 - 3:00pm
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Blog post by Reginald Andrade, Consumer Manager of Disability Services, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Last month, I walked across the campus of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to get to work. It was an ordinary stroll. But to a bystander, the sight of an educated Black professional going about his day was apparently cause for alarm.
That bystander called the police. My workplace was shut down. I was, and remain, humiliated.
Racial profiling at predominantly white institutions is nothing new, and this wasn’t the first time that I had to grit my teeth through a degrading interaction with police at the university. But this time, it made the news.
The day had started off normally, with my morning exercise routine at the campus recreation center before work. I was still in a positive mood during my daily stroll from the campus recreation center to my office at the Whitmore Administration Building, where I work as a case manager for the university’s disability services office. Over the years, I’ve helped hundreds of UMass Amherst students with physical and intellectual disabilities get the resources they deserve. It’s a role I take pride in, and I give it my all every day.
But on September 14, campus police were waiting for me when I arrived at the reception desk at Whitmore. I had no idea why but I knew it couldn’t be good. My heart started pounding.
Two university detectives sat me down me in an office and closed the door. Bewildered, I asked what was happening. They refused to answer, as they peppered me with questions.
“What time did you wake up?” “What were you doing at the campus recreation center?” “Did you come into the building agitated?” I felt confused, powerless, and scared, but made sure to maintain my composure. I remembered that even unarmed Black people disproportionately get killed during police encounters, and it was incumbent on me as an innocent Black man to show that I wasn’t a threat.
It wasn’t until the end of their interrogation that they revealed why I was being questioned. Someone had called the university’s anonymous tip line, reporting that they had seen an “agitated Black male” who was carrying a “a heavy backpack that is almost hitting the ground” as he approached the Whitmore Administration Building. I — the “agitated Black male” — apparently posed such a threat that police put the entire building on lockdown for half an hour.
I have no idea how the caller come to the conclusion that I was “agitated,” considering they hadn’t interacted with me. I do know that Black people are often stereotyped as angry, armed, or dangerous.
I’ve had to answer to the police before for being a Black man at UMass Amherst.
I remember the time that someone reported me to the police for listening to an audiobook in an empty classroom when I was an undergraduate at the university.
And the time, just four years ago, when someone decided that the sight of me entering my own office to drop off work supplies on a Saturday was reason to call the cops.
The surveillance and policing of my behavior has taken a toll on my mental health. I feel paranoid and unsafe on a campus that claims to be inclusive. It feels like any move I make, no matter how ordinary, can trigger a stressful encounter with the cops.
It’s not just here in Amherst. It’s also down the road, where a Black Smith College student was reported to police for eating in a common room. And in New Haven, where a Black graduate student had the police called on her for taking a nap in her dorm building. Also at Colorado State University, where two Native American teenagerswere reported to 911 for joining a campus tour.
And just think of all the stories that haven’t gone viral.
People who carry out their racial biases by calling the police have the luxury of staying anonymous. The targets of their calls don’t have that privilege. Before picking up the phone, people should ask themselves: Would I be making this call if the person were white? If no one is in danger, am I ok with the fact that this police call could follow the person for the rest of their life?
Universities must also do their part, especially at schools like UMass Amherst that manage their own police forces. Better training and policies can ensure that they’re not doing the racist bidding of vindictive 911 callers. Sweeping “see something, say something” directives must be amended to address the fact that dark skin is often the “something” prompts suspicion. I hope UMass Amherst will do the right thing – including cooperating with the public records request that the ACLU helped me file this week. It’s important for us to know what the anonymous caller said, as well as the campus police department’s protocols for responding to 911 calls and anonymous tips that may be based on racial bias.
Following the incident, a white colleague suggested I should try smiling more. Putting on a happy face, he implied, could have prevented this from happening. But racial profiling is not the fault of its victims. Performing happiness won’t change the reality that my skin color will continue to make some people assume I’m an “agitated Black male.”
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Wednesday, October 10, 2018 - 2:00pm
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ACLU represents UMass Amherst employee racially profiled on campus
ACLU represents Black student profiled at Smith College
A Smith College employee called the police on me for eating lunch while Black
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