Face Surveillance and the Capitol Attack

Face Recognition Impacts Everyone, Not Only Those Charged With Crimes 
The number of people affected by government use of face recognition is staggering: from DMV databases alone, roughly two-thirds of the population of the U.S. is at risk of image surveillance and misidentification, with no choice to opt out. Further, Clearview has extracted faceprints from over 3 billion people. This is not a question of “what happens if face recognition is used against you?” It is a question of how many times law enforcement has already done so. 

For many of the same reasons, EFF also opposes government identification of those at the Capitol by means of dragnet searches of cell phone records of everyone present. Such searches have many problems, from the fact that users are often not actually where records indicate they are, to this tactic’s history of falsely implicating innocent people. The Fourth Amendment was written specifically to prevent these kinds of overbroad searches.

Government Use of Facial Recognition Would Chill Protected Protest Activity
Facial surveillance technology allows police to track people not only after the fact but also in real time, including at lawful political protests. Police repeatedly used this same technology to arrest people who participated in last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Its normalization and widespread use by the government would fundamentally change the society in which we live. It will, for example, chill and deter people from exercising their First Amendment-protected rights to speak, peacefully assemble, and associate with others. 

Countless studies have shown that when people think the government is watching them, they alter their behavior to try to avoid scrutiny. And this burden historically falls disproportionately on communities of color, immigrants, religious minorities, and other marginalized groups.

Face surveillance technology is also prone to error and has already implicated multiple people for crimes they did not commit. 

Government use of facial recognition crosses a bright red line, and we should not normalize its use, even during a national tragedy. In responding to this unprecedented event, we must thoughtfully consider not just the unexpected ramifications that any new legislation could have, but the hazards posed by surveillance techniques like facial recognition. This technology poses a profound threat to personal privacy, racial justice, political and religious expression, and the fundamental freedom to go about our lives without having our movements and associations covertly monitored and analyzed.

Jason Kelley is acting associate director of research at EFF.This articleis published courtesy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).