Privacy & New Media

Washington Post
Editorial Board
July 5, 2020

“Defenders of unregulated facial recognition technology have always asked for concrete evidence of harm. Now they have it — and lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have signaled a willingness to act.

The New York Times reported last month that a man in Michigan named Robert Williams was wrongfully arrested early this year after an algorithm misidentified him, indicating to officers that he was a match for surveillance video of someone shoplifting $3,800 worth of watches. Police showed up at his home, handcuffed him in front of his wife and daughters and held him for 30 hours, during which time he demonstrated to detectives that he wasn’t the black man depicted in their grainy image. Weeks later in court, the prosecutor moved to dismiss his case.

“How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?” Mr. Williams wrote in an op-ed for The Post.

How does the government explain the same to its citizens? Last week, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced legislation that would impose a moratorium on biometric surveillance technologies until rules to govern them are in place.”

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