By Ryan Tracy
WASHINGTON -- Amid rising calls for regulation, technology
companies are pushing for laws that would restrict use of
facial-recognition systems -- and head off the more severe
prohibitions some cities and states are weighing.
Microsoft Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and others stand to profit as
government agencies and businesses expand use of the technology,
which can require large investments in machine-learning and
cloud-computing capacity.
That opportunity is threatened by campaigns to severely restrict
its use.
San Francisco and six other cities have passed laws to block
government use of facial recognition. Lawmakers in New York,
Massachusetts, Hawaii and Michigan are considering some form of ban
or strict limitation.
Pressed by advocacy groups, concert promoters LiveNation
Entertainment Inc. and AEG Presents, which stages the Coachella
Arts and Music Festival, say they don't have plans to use facial
recognition at their events.
More than 60 college campuses have also disavowed the
technology, activists say -- including the University of
California, Los Angeles, which confirmed it nixed a proposal to
link its security cameras to facial-recognition systems.
A coalition of 40 activist groups led by Fight for the Future is
circulating "Ban Facial Recognition" petitions that call on
lawmakers to block government agencies from any use of the
technology. Erica Darragh of Students for Sensible Drug Policy,
part of the coalition, says recruiting volunteers is a snap:
"Facial recognition freaks people out."
If elected president, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he would
bar police from using it.
Against this backdrop, Microsoft is backing bills in Congress
and in its home state of Washington permitting use of the
technology with oversight.
"If we don't move past the polarizing debates that have blocked
progress, people will continue to be left without any protection
under the law," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a
statement.
The Washington state measures would allow facial recognition for
specific uses such as investigating crime, controlling access to a
building or identifying a ticket holder.
Amazon, the world's largest provider of cloud-computing
services, declined to comment, but has said it supports national
standards. International Business Machines Corp. has called for
"precision regulations" that don't allow mass surveillance, and the
CEO of Google owner Alphabet Inc. has said he is open to a
temporary pause while regulations are developed.
Privacy advocates view industry-supported regulations as ploys
to conduct business as usual.
"They are effectively geared to allow these companies to
continue selling and profiting from these technologies, more or
less unhindered," said Meredith Whittaker of New York University's
AI Now Institute.
The market for technologies involving some form of facial
recognition could be worth $14.5 billion in 2025, up from $2
billion last year, according to research firm Omdia.
Supporters see facial recognition as a means to keep intruders
out of buildings, speed up entry lines at stadiums and airline
gates, identify criminal suspects and locate missing children.
Opponents fear it will usher in a surveillance state.
Participants in street rallies or public protests would lose their
anonymity. Retailers could identify people entering their stores,
possibly using it to monitor people with shoplifting
convictions.
In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to target
victims for financial scams, extortion or other schemes.
Studies also show that some facial-recognition systems are less
accurate on nonwhite and female faces than on white males, although
accuracy has been improving as the technology advances.
So far, law-enforcement agencies are among the biggest early
adopters. One supplier, N.Y.-based Clearview AI Inc., says it has
2,000 active users at law-enforcement agencies, largely in the U.S.
and Canada, including individuals who have been given a free
trial.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal says Clearview's
facial-recognition app helped officers identify suspected sexual
predators in an online sting operation led by Somerset County.
Amid rising concerns however, Mr. Grewal in January imposed a
statewide moratorium on Clearview's system until guidelines can be
drafted. Even so, an outright ban would be "an overcorrection that
could potentially undermine public safety," he said in an
interview.
Privacy advocates have raised concerns that Clearview hasn't
submitted its algorithm for federal accuracy testing, as other
companies have, and that the free trials it gives to police
agencies don't go through the usual vetting for government
contracts.
Critics also worry about Clearview's methods. It scrapes
internet photo databases, including social-media posts. Other
systems run narrower searches, like scanning mug shots.
That broader dragnet raises the risk of abuse, critics say --
enabling anyone with the Clearview app to take a photo of a
stranger and potentially learn his or her identity and personal
details.
Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That says his firm compiles photos that
are already public, and the technology is extremely accurate.
Clearview limits use to law enforcement and security professionals,
he said in an interview, though he acknowledged potential investors
have been given access.
For police, Clearview is "only a lead, not a piece of evidence,"
and they still need to prove their cases in court, he said.
In Washington state, a bill from Democratic state Sen. Joe
Nguyen aims to bar police from using facial recognition for broad
surveillance. They could deploy it to identify suspects or track
people suspected of felonies but only after taking steps such as
consulting the public and allowing third-party auditing.
"Technology itself is not what I'm scared of. I'm scared of how
it's used," said Mr. Nguyen, who also is a senior program manager
at Microsoft.
A second Washington state bill on consumer-data privacy requires
companies to post notice when they use facial recognition in
public. The operator of a facial-recognition system would have to
get permission before storing someone's likeness except when there
is a "reasonable suspicion" the person was involved in a crime.
As the bills moved through the state Senate last month,
Microsoft backed both. The Washington Association of Sheriffs &
Police Chiefs opposed Mr. Nguyen's bill, calling it overly
burdensome. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized both
bills for legitimizing surveillance, saying the state should let
municipalities make their own choices.
The state House passed different versions of the bills and
lawmakers are negotiating.
In Congress, members of both parties are discussing limits on
federal use of the technology, including a pause on new uses, but
haven't reached consensus.
"This technology is coming. What we should seek is a means by
which to make sure that Big Brother is not coming" along with it,
said Rep. Clay Higgins (R., La.) at a Jan. 15 hearing of the House
Oversight and Reform Committee.
One bill from Sens. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) and Brian Schatz (D.,
Hawaii) would allow companies to use facial recognition with public
notice, consent, and third-party testing. It has Microsoft's
backing, but hasn't gained momentum.
Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 08, 2020 06:44 ET (10:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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