SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Activists with Fight for the Future took to Capitol Hill in the U.S. on Thursday to demonstrate to lawmakers, lobbyists, and journalists exactly why stronger restrictions are needed on facial recognition software. (Photo: Fight for the Future)
'This Should Probably Be Illegal': Rights Advocates Target Lawmakers and Lobbyists With Facial Recognition Technology in US Capitol
"It's terrifyingly easy for anyone—a government agent, a corporation, or just a creepy stalker—to conduct biometric monitoring and violate basic rights at a massive scale. We did this to make a point."
Nov 13, 2019
To demonstrate exactly why tougher restrictions--including a ban for government agencies--should be placed on facial recognition technology, digital privacy rights advocates Thursday morning showed up on Capitol Hill to deploy the controversial technology against lawmakers, corporate lobbyists, and even members of the press.
"This should probably be illegal," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, the group behind the effort, in a statement. And that's the point.
"Until Congress takes action to ban facial recognition surveillance," Greer said, "it's terrifyingly easy for anyone--a government agent, a corporation, or just a creepy stalker--to conduct biometric monitoring and violate basic rights at a massive scale."
The group is using the commercially available Rekognition software, made by Amazon, to scan the faces of thousands of people walking by in Washington, D.C. and then cross-checking those faces with a database to "track down" their possible identities. Part of their "Ban Facial Recognition" demand, Fight for the Future noted that a wide coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups--including Greenpeace, Color of Change, United We Dream, Council on American Islamic Relations, and many others--have endorsed their campaign.
As of this writing, according to the ScanCongress.com website, the activists have already scanned the faces of 9,240 people.
Watch a livestream of the activists as they gather the images:
"Several cities have already banned the controversial technology outright, including San Francisco, Somerville, MA, Berkeley, CA, and Oakland, CA," the group noted in a statement, "and there is growing bipartisan support in Congress to address the issue at the federal level.
Greer said she and other activists are scanning people in the nation's capital city to make a very specific point. "We need an immediate ban on law enforcement and government use of face surveillance," she said, "and should urgently and severely limit its use for private and commercial purposes."
After the protest, the group said it will release a web tool on ScanCongress.com to allow people who were in the D.C. area on Thursday to upload a photo and check whether their face was scanned. Within two weeks, they said, all the data will be destroyed.
"We're going to delete the data that we collect," Greer said. Other people or agencies, however, she warned "could use the same technology to do unimaginable harm."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
To demonstrate exactly why tougher restrictions--including a ban for government agencies--should be placed on facial recognition technology, digital privacy rights advocates Thursday morning showed up on Capitol Hill to deploy the controversial technology against lawmakers, corporate lobbyists, and even members of the press.
"This should probably be illegal," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, the group behind the effort, in a statement. And that's the point.
"Until Congress takes action to ban facial recognition surveillance," Greer said, "it's terrifyingly easy for anyone--a government agent, a corporation, or just a creepy stalker--to conduct biometric monitoring and violate basic rights at a massive scale."
The group is using the commercially available Rekognition software, made by Amazon, to scan the faces of thousands of people walking by in Washington, D.C. and then cross-checking those faces with a database to "track down" their possible identities. Part of their "Ban Facial Recognition" demand, Fight for the Future noted that a wide coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups--including Greenpeace, Color of Change, United We Dream, Council on American Islamic Relations, and many others--have endorsed their campaign.
As of this writing, according to the ScanCongress.com website, the activists have already scanned the faces of 9,240 people.
Watch a livestream of the activists as they gather the images:
"Several cities have already banned the controversial technology outright, including San Francisco, Somerville, MA, Berkeley, CA, and Oakland, CA," the group noted in a statement, "and there is growing bipartisan support in Congress to address the issue at the federal level.
Greer said she and other activists are scanning people in the nation's capital city to make a very specific point. "We need an immediate ban on law enforcement and government use of face surveillance," she said, "and should urgently and severely limit its use for private and commercial purposes."
After the protest, the group said it will release a web tool on ScanCongress.com to allow people who were in the D.C. area on Thursday to upload a photo and check whether their face was scanned. Within two weeks, they said, all the data will be destroyed.
"We're going to delete the data that we collect," Greer said. Other people or agencies, however, she warned "could use the same technology to do unimaginable harm."
To demonstrate exactly why tougher restrictions--including a ban for government agencies--should be placed on facial recognition technology, digital privacy rights advocates Thursday morning showed up on Capitol Hill to deploy the controversial technology against lawmakers, corporate lobbyists, and even members of the press.
"This should probably be illegal," said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, the group behind the effort, in a statement. And that's the point.
"Until Congress takes action to ban facial recognition surveillance," Greer said, "it's terrifyingly easy for anyone--a government agent, a corporation, or just a creepy stalker--to conduct biometric monitoring and violate basic rights at a massive scale."
The group is using the commercially available Rekognition software, made by Amazon, to scan the faces of thousands of people walking by in Washington, D.C. and then cross-checking those faces with a database to "track down" their possible identities. Part of their "Ban Facial Recognition" demand, Fight for the Future noted that a wide coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups--including Greenpeace, Color of Change, United We Dream, Council on American Islamic Relations, and many others--have endorsed their campaign.
As of this writing, according to the ScanCongress.com website, the activists have already scanned the faces of 9,240 people.
Watch a livestream of the activists as they gather the images:
"Several cities have already banned the controversial technology outright, including San Francisco, Somerville, MA, Berkeley, CA, and Oakland, CA," the group noted in a statement, "and there is growing bipartisan support in Congress to address the issue at the federal level.
Greer said she and other activists are scanning people in the nation's capital city to make a very specific point. "We need an immediate ban on law enforcement and government use of face surveillance," she said, "and should urgently and severely limit its use for private and commercial purposes."
After the protest, the group said it will release a web tool on ScanCongress.com to allow people who were in the D.C. area on Thursday to upload a photo and check whether their face was scanned. Within two weeks, they said, all the data will be destroyed.
"We're going to delete the data that we collect," Greer said. Other people or agencies, however, she warned "could use the same technology to do unimaginable harm."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.