The state Senate sent Gov. Gavin Newsom a bill Wednesday that would impose a three-year moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology in police body cameras.
Proponents of the legislation say the technology is flawed in several ways, including as a privacy invasion and because of a high error rate in identifying members of certain demographic groups.
“Facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technology has been repeatedly demonstrated to misidentify women, young people and people of color and to create an elevated risk of harmful ‘false positive’ identifications,” the bill states. “Facial and other biometric surveillance would corrupt the core purpose of officer-worn body cameras by transforming those devices from transparency and accountability tools into roving surveillance systems.”
The legislation — AB 1215, introduced by Assemblyman Phil Ting — would expire in January 2023.
Among those opposed to the technology is the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which conducted an experiment designed to highlight the flaws in the technology.
“The analysis shows that facial recognition software marketed to law enforcement agencies mistakenly matched the faces of one out of five lawmakers, 26 lawmakers total, with images in an arrest photo database, including Ting’s,” says an ACLUNC explainer. “More than half of those falsely identified are lawmakers of color, illustrating the risks associated with the technology’s dangerous inaccuracies and the certain erosion of civil liberties should California police departments add the technology to officer body cameras.”
“This experiment reinforces the fact that facial recognition software is not ready for prime time, let alone for use in body cameras worn by law enforcement,” Ting is quoted as saying in the ACLUNC explainer. “I could see innocent Californians subjected to perpetual police lineups because of false matches. We must not allow this to happen.”
In a story this week, Wired.com notes: “Last spring, Microsoft said it had refused to sell its facial recognition software to an unnamed California police agency. In June, Axon, the largest supplier of body cameras to law enforcement, said it wouldn’t include facial recognition in its product, on the recommendation of its external ethics board. In part, it was a recognition that the technology simply doesn’t work well enough — at least not yet.”
Within the IT industry, AB 1215’s opponents include the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit that’s supported by companies including Microsoft and Amazon. In addition, law enforcement officials have noted its value in identifying criminal suspects.
And among the public, the technology is generally supported.
According to Threatpost.com, “a slight majority of Americans have no issue with the use of facial recognition by law enforcement.”
Pew Research Center says a full 56 percent of respondents in a recent survey said “they trust police and government officials to use these technologies responsibly. That goes for situations in which no consent is given: About 59 percent said it is acceptable for law enforcement to use facial-recognition tools to assess security threats in public spaces.”
Unresolved is what happens after the legislation’s three-year moratorium expires. Some see technology improving enough by then to reduce the erroneous identifications; others say the privacy and civil liberties issues will not go away, no matter the tech.
Bill Puts 3-Year Freeze on Biometrics in Police Body Cams
Proponents of the legislation say the technology is flawed in several ways, including as a privacy invasion and because of a high error rate in identifying members of certain demographic groups. Supporters cite its value to law enforcement, and a majority of the public agrees.
