S.T.O.P. Condemns South Florida Police’s Facial Recognition Surveillance Of BLM Protests

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View this email in your browser For Immediate Release S.T.O.P. Condemns South Florida Police’s Facial Recognition Surveillance Of BLM Protests (New York, NY, 6/29/2021) - Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a privacy and civil rights group, condemns the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale police departments’ facial recognition surveillance of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. Reporting from the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Pulitzer Center showed the agencies were tracking protesters simply for exercising their First Amendment rights.   SEE: Sun Sentinel – South Florida police quietly ran facial recognition scans to identify peaceful protestors. Is that legal? https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-ne-facial-recognition-protests-20210626-7sll5uuaqfbeba32rndlv3xwxi-htmlstory.html   “Police will always weaponize their surveillance tools against those who dissent,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “As long as police are allowed to use facial recognition, we will continue to see these sorts of abuses, and that’s why we need to ban the technology. Facial recognition is incompatible with freedom of assembly and democracy itself. We must not allow police to use surveillance to target the historic movements against police violence. While many police departments claim to have facial recognition regulations that prevent this sort of misuse, the only regulation that truly works is a complete ban."   The announcement comes as the civil rights group continues to call on federal, state, and local officials to outlaw facial recognition. The group has also called on Amazon and other surveillance vendors to stop their sales of the controversial technology.   S.T.O.P. Warns Amazon Facial Recognition Moratorium ‘Falls Short’ https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2021/5/18/stop-warns-amazon-facial-recognition-moratorium-falls-short   Advocates Rally Against Facial Recognition, Launch ‘Decode Surveillance NYC’ https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2021/4/19/advocates-rally-against-facial-recognition-launch-decode-surveillance-nyc   The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color. -- END -- CONTACT: S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn Copyright © 2019 Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.