Facial recognition is both a powerful & problematic frontier—and one Congress needs to get ahead of NOW. @SenBooker & I are demanding a moratorium on federal use until we can be sure people of color won’t be wrongfully targeted, & Americans’ rights to privacy won’t be abused. pic.twitter.com/tIZfgBhZ88
— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) February 12, 2020
They suggest that the group would be made of members appointed by the president, as well as House and Senate leaders, to address issues like making sure US citizens have “reasonable anonymity” and don’t “live in a constant state of surveillance,” or that its use disproportionately impacts protected classes of individuals.
In a statement, ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Neema Singh Guliani said “While a good first step, the bill’s exceptions — including allowing police to use this technology with only a warrant — fails to fully account for the realities of this mass surveillance tool. With these exceptions, this bill won’t stop police from using error-prone and biased algorithms to target, interrogate, and even arrest people. It won’t ensure that defendants are provided their constitutional right to challenge these tools in court. And it won’t fully mitigate the threat that this technology poses to protesters exercising their First Amendment rights.”
