Favorite In Texas’ first public enforcement of its biometric privacy law, Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle claims that its now-defunct face recognition system violated state law. The law was first passed in 2001. As part of the Texas settlement, Meta (formerly Facebook) can seek pre-approval from the state for any future biometric…
All posts tagged Biometrics
Young People May Be The Biggest Target for Online Censorship and Surveillance—and the Strongest Weapon Against Them
Favorite Over the last year, state and federal legislatures have tried to pass—and in some cases succeeded in passing—legislation that bars young people from digital spaces, censors what they are allowed to see and share online, and monitors and controls when and how they can do it. EFF and many other digital rights and civil…
Montana’s New Genetic Privacy Law Caps Off Ten Years of Innovative State Privacy Protections
Favorite Over the last 10+ years, Montana has, with little fanfare or national attention, steadily pushed to protect its residents’ privacy interests through sensible laws that recognize the unique threats posed by new technologies. Now Montana has passed one of the nation’s most protective consumer genetic privacy laws—the Genetic Information Privacy Act. Could this law…
Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him
Favorite In a victory for transparency in police use of facial recognition, a New Jersey appellate court today ruled that state prosecutors—who charged a man for armed robbery after the technology showed he was a “possible match” for the suspect—must turn over to the defendant detailed information about the face scanning software used, including how…
EFF Files Amicus Brief Challenging Orange County, CA’s Controversial DNA Collection Program
Favorite Should the government be allowed to collect your DNA—and retain it indefinitely—if you’re arrested for a low-level offense like shoplifting a tube of lipstick, driving without a valid license, or walking your dog off leash? We don’t think so. As we argue in an amicus brief filed in support of a case called Thompson…
Ban Government Use of Face Recognition In the UK
Favorite In 2015, Leicestershire Police scanned the faces of 90,000 individuals at a music festival in the UK and checked these images against a database of people suspected of crimes across Europe. This was the first known deployment of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) at an outdoor public event in the UK. In the years since,…
Not Just San Francisco: Police Across the Country are Retaining and Searching DNA of Victims and Innocent People
Favorite This week we learned that San Francisco Police used a woman’s own DNA—collected years earlier as part of an investigation into her sexual assault—to charge her for an unrelated property crime. What’s worse—it appears the S.F. police routinely search victims’ DNA in criminal investigations. This practice is possible because San Francisco has been storing…
Victory! More Lawsuits Proceed Against Clearview’s Face Surveillance
Favorite Face surveillance is a growing menace to racial justice, privacy, free speech, and information security. So EFF supports bans on government use of this dangerous technology, and laws requiring corporations to get opt-in consent from a person before taking their faceprint. One of the worst offenders is Clearview AI, which extracts faceprints from billions…
Face Recognition Technology: Commonly Used Terms
Favorite As face recognition technology evolves at a dizzying speed, new uses and terminologies seem to develop daily. On this page, we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonly used terms. For more information on government use of face recognition and how to end it in your community, visit EFF’s About Face…
EFF and Allies Urge Council of Europe to Add Strong Human Rights Safeguards Before Final Adoption of Flawed Cross Border Surveillance Treaty
Favorite EFF, European Digital Rights (EDRi), the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), and other civil society organizations have worked closely on recommendations to strengthen human rights protections in a flawed international cross border police surveillance treaty drafted by the Council of Europe (CoE). At a virtual hearing today before the CoE…