WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th February, 2021) A coalition of more than 40 civil rights and other advocacy groups called on President Joe Biden to halt all US government use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in a letter released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
"FRT is already responsible for multiple false arrests and mistaken incarcerations of Black men. It disproportionately misidentifies and misclassifies people of color, trans people, women, and other marginalized groups, causing harm in our schools, homes, and communities, and it threatens our core constitutional freedoms including freedom of association and speech, due process protections, and privacy rights," the letter addressed to Biden said on Wednesday.
The coalition included the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which represents nearly all US civil rights groups, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amnesty International and others, the ACLU said in an accompanying press release.
The letter cited multiple studies demonstrating that the technology does not work on minorities, especially Blacks. A 2018 experiment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed Black women misidentified 35 percent of the time, while the identification of white men was nearly always accurate.
"In keeping with President Biden's commitment to racial equity, he must immediately take this important first step" by halting use of the technology by Federal agencies," ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Kate Ruane said in the release.
Multiple jurisdictions have banned police use of facial recognition technology including the cities of San Francisco, Boston and New Orleans, as well as the entire state of Vermont. In addition, New York State has suspended use of facial recognition in schools and California with police-worn body cameras, according to the ACLU.
