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Thread: Facial Recognition Technology - Time to recognize the dangers of unfettered use of yo

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    Facial Recognition Technology - Time to recognize the dangers of unfettered use of yo

    Facial Recognition Technology- Time to recognize the dangers of unfettered use of your biometrics by Government.


    https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-1...2shrg86599.htm

    WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2012

    U.S. Senate,
    Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law,
    Committee on the Judiciary,
    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:36 p.m., in
    Room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Al Franken,
    Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Franken, Whitehouse, and Blumenthal.
    Also present. Senator Sessions.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. AL FRANKEN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
    STATE OF MINNESOTA

    Chairman Franken. This hearing will be called to order.
    Welcome to the fourth hearing of the Subcommittee on Privacy,
    Technology, and the Law. Today's hearing will examine the use
    of facial recognition technology by the Government and the
    private sector and what that means for privacy and civil
    liberties.
    I want to be clear: There is nothing inherently right or
    wrong with facial recognition technology. Just like any other
    new and powerful technology, it is a tool that can be used for
    great good. But if we do not stop and carefully consider the
    way we use this technology, it could also be abused in ways
    that could threaten basic aspects of our privacy and civil
    liberties. I called this hearing so we can just start this
    conversation.
    I believe that we have a fundamental right to control our
    private information, and biometric information is already among
    the most sensitive of our private information, mainly because
    it is both unique and permanent. You can change your password.
    You can get a new credit card. But you cannot change your
    fingerprint, and you cannot change your face--unless, I guess,
    you go to a great deal of trouble.
    Indeed, the dimensions of our faces are unique to each of
    us--just like our fingerprints. And just like fingerprint
    analysis, facial recognition technology allows others to
    identify you with what is called a ``faceprint''--a unique file
    describing your face.
    But facial recognition creates acute privacy concerns that
    fingerprints do not. Once someone has your fingerprint, they
    can dust your house or your surroundings to figure out what you
    have touched.
    Once someone has your faceprint, they can get your name,
    they can find your social networking account, and they can find
    and track you in the street, in the stores that you visit, the
    Government buildings you enter, and the photos your friends
    post online. Your face is a conduit to an incredible amount of
    information about you, and facial recognition technology can
    allow others to access all of that information from a distance,
    without your knowledge, and in about as much time as it takes
    to snap a photo.
    People think of facial recognition as something out of a
    science fiction novel. In reality, facial recognition
    technology is in broad use today. If you have a driver's
    license, if you have a passport, if you are a member of a
    social network, chances are good that you are part of a facial
    recognition data base.
    There are countless uses of this technology, and many of
    them are innovative and quite useful. The State Department uses
    facial recognition technology to identify and stop passport
    fraud--preventing people from getting multiple passports under
    different names. Using facial recognition technology, Sheriff
    Larry Amerson of Calhoun County, Alabama, who is with us here
    today, can make sure that a prisoner being released from the
    Calhoun County jail is actually the same prisoner that is
    supposed to be released. That is useful. Similarly, some of the
    latest smartphones can be unlocked by the owner by just looking
    at the phone and blinking.
    But there are uses of this technology that should give us
    pause.
    In 2010, Facebook, the largest social network, began
    signing up all of its then 800 million users in a program
    called Tag Suggestions. Tag Suggestions made it easier to tag
    close friends in photos, and that is a good thing.
    But the feature did this by creating a unique faceprint for
    every one of those friends. And in doing so, Facebook may have
    created the world's largest privately held data base of
    faceprints--without the explicit consent of its users. To date,
    Tag Suggestions is an opt-out program. Unless you have taken
    the time to turn it off, it may have already been used to
    generate your faceprint.
    Separately, last year, the FBI rolled out a Facial
    Recognition Pilot program in Maryland, Michigan, and Hawaii
    that will soon expand to three more States. This pilot lets
    officers in the field take a photo of someone and compare it to
    a Federal data base of criminal mug shots. The pilot can also
    help ID a suspect in a photo from an actual crime. Already,
    several other States are setting up their own facial
    recognition systems independently of the FBI. These efforts
    will catch criminals. In fact, they already have.
    Now, many of you may be thinking that that is an excellent
    thing, and I agree. But unless law enforcement facial
    recognition programs are deployed in a very careful manner, I
    fear that these gains could eventually come at a high cost to
    our civil liberties.
    I fear that the FBI pilot could be abused to not only
    identify protesters at political events and rallies, but to
    target them for selective jailing and prosecution, stifling
    their First Amendment rights. Curiously enough, a lot of the
    presentations on this technology by the Department of Justice
    show it being used on people attending political events or
    other public gatherings.
    I also fear that without further protections, facial
    recognition technology could be used on unsuspecting civilians
    innocent of any crime, invading their privacy and exposing them
    to potential false identifications....

    http://nj.gov/mvc/pdf/About/Annual%20Report%202015.pdf

    http://www.aamva.org/uploadedFiles/M...ogy_MASTER.pdf

    https://www.eff.org/files/2013/11/07...final_v2_2.pdf
    Last edited by Gavilan; 06-23-16 at 08:00 PM.

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