Technology that was once only seen in dystopian science fiction is rapidly infecting real life. Two means of collecting personal data – DNA databases and facial recognition software – are forming an unholy alliance, and the privacy implications could be devastating. Privacy concerns surrounding DNA and facial recognition aren’t anything new. As the popularity of […]
Democrats, Republicans Both Want to Regulate Facial Recognition…
Legal experts, tech researchers and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for Congress to rein in the use of facial recognition tools by law enforcement agencies “before it gets out of control.” If left unchecked, they said the tech could infringe on Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, and perpetuate racial and gender […]
UK Cops Fine Pedestrian $115 for Avoiding Facial Recognition Camera…
A UK pedestrian was arrested and fined £90 ($115 US) after attempting to cover his face while passing a controversial facial recognition camera van on a East London street. The notorious London police vans scan the faces of passers-by and compare them to a database of wanted criminals. One man wasn’t having any of it, […]
Student Slaps Apple with $1B Lawsuit, Blames Facial Recognition Software for False Report…
A college student filed a lawsuit against Apple on Monday, alleging that the tech giant’s facial recognition software led to the teen’s arrest for crimes he didn’t commit. Ousmane Bah, 18, filed a lawsuit Monday for $1 billion, alleging that facial recognition software in the company’s stores falsely identified him as the criminal responsible for […]
The FBI Is Trying Amazon’s Facial-Recognition Software…
The FBI is piloting Amazon’s facial matching software—Amazon Rekognition—as a means to sift through mountains of video surveillance footage the agency routinely collects during investigations. The pilot kicked off in early 2018 following a string of high-profile counterterrorism investigations that tested the limits of the FBI’s technological capabilities, according to FBI officials…
Ever Wonder How Gov Uses Ginormous Database on You and Me?…
In July 1996, flight TWA 800 exploded in mid-air, 12 minutes after taking off from JFK International Airport in New York. All 230 passengers on board were killed. It would be four years before an investigation concluded the likely cause of the explosion was a short circuit in the plane’s fuel tank. But at the […]
Smile! The Secretive Business of Facial-Recognition Software in Retail Stores…
Have you been to Madison Square Garden recently? Or Kennedy International Airport? If so, there’s a good chance that you were photographed by a security camera. Depending on where you were and the technology being used, your face may have been analyzed by bots and checked against a database of criminals and “known shoplifters.” It […]
IBM Used NYPD Surveillance Footage to Develop Technology That Lets Police Search by Skin Color…
In the decade after the 9/11 attacks, the New York City Police Department moved to put millions of New Yorkers under constant watch. Warning of terrorism threats, the department created a plan to carpet Manhattan’s downtown streets with thousands of cameras and had, by 2008, centralized its video surveillance operations to a single command center. […]
Facial Recognition Gives Police a Powerful New Tracking Tool. It’s Also Raising Alarms…
Picture a crowded street. Police are searching for a man believed to have committed a violent crime. To find him, they feed a photograph into a video surveillance network powered by artificial intelligence. A camera, one of thousands, scans the street, instantly analyzing the faces of everyone it sees. Then, an alert: The algorithms found […]
Amazon’s Facial Recognition Tech Falsely Matched 28 Members of Congress with Arrest Mugshots…
Amazon Rekognition, the controversial facial recognition tool from the Silicon Valley tech giant, has falsely matched 28 members of US Congress with mugshots in its database, a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union revealed today. “These results demonstrate why Congress should join the ACLU in calling for a moratorium on law enforcement use […]