For 2305, the next big issue in search and seizures.
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As facial recognition becomes an increasingly common law enforcement tool, the risks it can pose are becoming increasingly clear. Recently, police in Hong Kong are weaponizing the technology to identify protesters, who are using everything from face masks to laser pointers to try to avoid government retaliation for taking to the streets.
It may seem implausible that police in America would use facial recognition to identify and target protesters—but this has actually already happened. Several years ago, Baltimore police used a social media monitoring company, Geofeedia, to scan social media photos of people at a constitutionally protected protest of the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Police used this information to find out if any protesters had outstanding warrants, and, according to the Baltimore Sun, arrested them “directly from the crowd.” Social media companies responded to this news by cutting off Geofeedia’s ability to scrape their photo data.
To the best of the public’s knowledge, law enforcement agencies have not tried to harness social media and online photo databases for facial recognition since the Geofeedia incident. But both technology companies and civil liberties advocates need to prepare for this possibility. Major companies that maintain personal photos through photo storing and sharing services—such as Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Dropbox and Yahoo—should consider adding information on facial recognition to their annual transparency reports detailing many of their interactions with the government, including how the companies responded to government demands to turn over content.
Companies should also alert the public if the government issues orders to access these photo databases to conduct facial recognition scans. Given many companies’ proactive attitudes toward increasing transparency about government surveillance demands, publishing information on facial recognition would meaningfully expand their work to protect and better inform users.
The rapidly growing use of facial recognition makes it all the more important for companies to take such a step now: Already, at least one in four police departments possesses the capability to use facial recognition surveillance, and the FBI conducts an average of 4,000 facial recognition searches every month.
- Geofeedia.
