S.T.O.P. Condemns FBI, DoD’s Research On Wide-Area Facial Recognition, Renews Call For Ban

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View this email in your browser For Immediate Release   S.T.O.P. Condemns FBI, DoD’s Research On Wide-Area Facial Recognition, Renews Call For Ban (New York, NY, 3/7/2023) -  Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a privacy and civil rights group, condemns the FBI and Department of Defense’s research and development of “truly unconstrained face imagery” aiming to scan people’s faces up to half a mile away in public spaces without their consent, using surveillance cameras and drones. The ACLU obtained internal documents revealing that the project was part of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency's Janus facial recognition program, which involved close collaboration with top academic researchers. S.T.O.P. renewed its prior calls for a federal ban on facial recognition.   SEE: Washington Post - FBI, Pentagon helped research facial recognition for street cameras, drones https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/07/facial-recognition-fbi-dod-research-aclu/   “While every form of facial recognition raises profound concerns, this system would pose truly unprecedented threats,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “With wide-area facial recognition systems, intelligence agencies could track our movements across entire cities with a small number of cameras. This sort of surveillance is not only creepy, but unconstitutional, amounting to the type of persistent location tracking the Supreme Court has struck down with other technologies. But we shouldn’t wait years for this type of tracking to be struck down as well. We need to enact comprehensive facial recognition bans today.”   In 2021, the civil rights group condemned the FBI’s relationship with controversial facial recognition vendor, Clearview AI, which has drawn widespread scrutiny for taking the publics’ images from social media and other websites without consent. That same year, S.T.O.P condemned federal expansion of facial recognition after a Government Accountability Office reported 18 of 24 federal agencies surveyed use facial recognition. SEE: S.T.O.P. Condemns FBI Facial Recognition With Clearview AI  https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2022/1/11/stop-condemns-fbi-facial-recognition-with-clearview-ai S.T.O.P. Condemns Federal Plans to Expand Facial Recognition, Calls For Ban https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2021/8/25/stop-condemns-federal-plans-to-expand-facial-recognition-calls-for-ban   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 © 2021 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.