On Wednesday, a bill in the California State Assembly to expand facial recognition technology in the state was held in committee, effectively killing it. The bill's sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Ed Chau, introduced it with the intention of “regulat[ing] the use of facial recognition technology by commercial, state and local public entities.” However, many civil rights and civil liberties groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, opposed the bill, on the grounds that it "would allow companies to use face scans to deny people jobs, financial services, health care, and even basic necessities. It would provide workers with no recourse if their employers use face recognition to scan, identify, or track them in the workplace. Troublingly, it would also permit companies to sell face recognition technology to law enforcement even when they know their tech to be flawed and racially biased." As Sarah Ruiz-Grossman of HuffPost reports:
"Facial recognition technology has drawn scrutiny for its flaws, notably for frequently improperly identifying racial minorities. In one high-profile example in 2018, Amazon’s facial recognition tool incorrectly matched the faces of 28 lawmakers with people in mug shots and disproportionately misidentified people of color in a test by the ACLU.
"'We know face surveillance technology is less accurate for people of color, and a misidentification could subject people to racially biased police violence,' ACLU of Northern California attorney Matt Cagle told HuffPost last year.
"Facial recognition tools have been used in the past by law enforcement to monitor protests, reported the Verge — including to locate protesters in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man who died after being arrested by police in 2015.
"Over the past week, protests have erupted nationwide against systemic racism and unjust policing in response to the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Floyd, who was Black, pleaded “I can’t breathe” as white officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the handcuffed man’s neck."
Knowing these facts, it is definitely a positive thing that this bill did not pass. However, the question remains as to why Chau would introduce it in the first place. Well, among the top five companies that are leading the way in facial recognition technology are Facebook, as well as the aforementioned Amazon, two companies that the assemblyman has taken a combined total of $10,900 from ($7,400 from Facebook and $3,500 from Amazon) in corporate PAC money throughout his tenure. In addition, the health sector has been listed as one of the best industries to implement facial recognition technology; Chau has taken $121,159 from the sector since his first election. Also, there have been articles that suggest that industries such as hospitality, or lodging and tourism, and air transport could benefit from this technology. Chau has taken $6,700 and $3,800 from these respective industries.
Again, while it is good that this bill was killed, it is unfortunate that Chau appears to have put the interests of his donors over his constituents' civil rights and civil liberties. In times such as this, when racial profiling is rampant, we do not need policies such as facial recognition technology that only make us regress on this issue.
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