Californians: It’s time to speak out against government use of face surveillance. While several California cities have banned government use of face recognition technology, state lawmakers haven’t taken the same approach. A new bill this session, A.B. 642—authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting—would normalize and incentivize police use of this technology across the state.
EFF opposes this bill, along with more than 50 organizations including ACLU California Action. Together, we have called on the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee to stop it from moving forward. Join us in saying California should not normalize government use of face recognition technology.
Oppose Face Surveillance in California
In the hands of police and other government agencies, face recognition technology presents an inherent threat to our privacy, free expression, information security, and social justice. Our faces are unique identifiers that can’t be left at home or replaced like a stolen ID or compromised password. The technology facilitates covert mass surveillance of the places we frequent and people we associate with. Government agencies even plan to use it to try to determine our emotional state.
Face recognition technology also disproportionately impacts people of color. The New York Times published a long piece on the case of Robert Julian-Borchak Williams, who was arrested by Detroit police after face recognition technology erroneously identified him as a suspect in a theft case. Williams and multiple other Black men (Michael Oliver, This article has been indexed from Deeplinks
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