SACRAMENTO, CA – The ACLU California last week urged AB 1814 – dealing with facial recognition – be held in committee here at the State Capitol because the measure would help “Project 2025” violate people’s civil rights.
The article states “California is on the cusp of helping Project 2025 achieve its goals. AB 1814 would greenlight facial recognition for police departments across the state. The bill is so weak and poorly written that it would make California a sitting duck for surveillance authoritarianism.”
The ACLU charged, “California lawmakers have ignored their constituents and the more than 70 reproductive justice, LGBTQ, immigrant’s rights, privacy, and racial justice organizations who oppose AB 1814.”
ACLU of California added the bill would “open state databases to facial recognition, putting all of us in perpetual virtual lineups,” describing AB 1814 as “one of the weakest facial recognition laws in the country. It would drag California down to the same level as Alabama.”
“AB 1814 would let police use facial recognition in dangerous and anti-democratic ways. If it passes, it would be frightfully easy for a hostile presidential administration to use facial recognition to identify abortion seekers, LGBTQ people, activists, immigrants, students, and any other people they deem undesirable,” the ACLU article claimed.
“Facial recognition is known to be racially biased, but instead of stopping this problem, AB 1814 all but ensures that Black people will continue to be wrongfully arrested. In fact, multiple survivors of wrongful facial recognition arrests oppose the bill, as do their lawyers,” argued the ACLU.
