We Scanned Thousands Of Faces In DC Today To Show Why Facial Recognition Surveillance Should Be Banned
Today, activists working with digital rights group Fight for the Future conducted live facial recognition surveillance in the halls of Congress and the area surrounding Capitol Hill, to show why this technology is so dangerous that it should be banned. Using Amazon’s commercially available Rekognition software — running on smartphones strapped to our heads — our team ran 13,732 biometric face scans in Washington, DC. By comparing live footage against a database we had assembled, the system successfully identified a member of Congress in real time: Representative Mark DeSaulnier of California.