Open MIC today joined a coalition of 40 organizations in urging the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent executive branch agency, to recommend suspension of facial recognition programs across the federal government. The organizations sent a letter to the PCLOB citing the dangerously rapid growth of government-supported facial recognition systems targeting American citizens within the United States.
The coalition letter specifically cited the increased use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement despite clear evidence of racism and discrimination. A 2019 study from the National Institute of Science and Technology, for example, showed that “false positives are up to 100 times more likely for Asian and African American faces when compared to White faces.” The organizations recommended a blanket moratorium on use of the technology. Even the prospect of improved accuracy fails to justify further deployment of facial recognition, the letter said.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was founded in 2007 in response to a post 9/11 shift of power and authority to the government. The PCLOB’s mission is to “ensure that the federal government’s efforts to prevent terrorism are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties.” The Board provides both oversight and advice, with the specific task of advising the President and Executive Branch when new or existing policies may threaten privacy and civil liberties.
The federal government would not be alone in taking action to restrict the deployment of facial recognition systems. As mentioned in the letter, a number of local governments in the United States are “taking steps to protect their residents against the use of facial recognition for mass surveillance.” The European Union is also considering a proposal that would ban facial recognition in public spaces for up to five years
Click here to read the letter.
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The letter was drafted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and co-signed by the following organizations:
Alianza Naciónal de Campesinas
Algorithmic Justice League
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
American Friends Service Committee
Black and Brown Activism Defense Collective
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
Center for Digital Democracy
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights – CHIRLA
Color of Change
Constitutional Alliance
Consumer Action
Consumer Federation of America
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
Cyber Privacy Project
Defending Rights & Dissent
Demand Progress
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
Fight for the Future
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Free Press Action
Media Alliance
MediaJustice
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Hispanic Media Coalition
National LGBTQ Task Force
National Workrights Institute
Oklahoma Black Historical Research Project, Inc.
Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative)
Patient Privacy Rights
Popular Resistance
Privacy Times
Project on Government Oversight
Restore the Fourth
Rural Coalition, Washington, DC
Rural Advancement Fund of the National Sharecroppers Fund, Orangeburg, SC
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.)
Woodhull Freedom Foundation
World Farmers (Lancaster, MA)
X-Lab