By Andrea Bernal
SACRAMENTO, CA – The California Legislature’s recent rejection of Assembly Bill 1814 that “would have greenlit government use of facial recognition across the state” has allowed the ACLU to breathe a little easier, according to a recent blog post by ACLU’s Legislative Advocate Becca Cramer-Mowder.
At the beginning of the blog post, Cramer-Mowder explains AB 1814 was shot down mid-August by California’s Senate Appropriations Committee.
However, she noted, if the bill had passed, it would have created “one of the worst facial recognition laws in the country” and would have ultimately granted the government’s use of facial recognition.
Under a section of the blog post called “What AB 1814 Got Wrong,” Cramer-Mowder claims the bill essentially “disguised itself as something that would protect civil rights” but would have instead been a “disaster for Black and Brown people, people seeking abortions, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone who cares about privacy.”
Additionally, the bill, Cramer-Mowder adds, would require that any time a police department utilizes facial recognition technology to arrest a person, the officer would then need to have another reason “beyond the match itself” to actually make the arrest.
“While this might sound good on paper,” Cramer-Mowder says in her blog post, “in practice, we know it means close to nothing.”
Cramer-Mowder notes this type of approach is ultimately flawed, stating, as an example, police who have used facial recognition to create a “photo lineup of doppelgangers of people who look like, but are not, the suspect.” She calls this a “recipe for disaster.”
She adds the end result of AB 1814 would have ultimately accelerated facial recognition instead of limiting it and would become “facial recognition open season in California.”
In her final section of the blog called “The Dangers of Face Surveillance,” Cramer-Mowder argues the emphasis on false arrests as the “primary danger of face surveillance tacitly suggests that all other uses of facial are ‘safe’ – including (…) to out LGBTQ people, scan someone’s emotions, or determine someone’s political learnings.”
She adds, “Whether the results are accurate or not, attempts by the government to use facial recognition systems in these ways would cause real harm to Californians.”
With this, Cramer-Mowder also mentions in her blog post the ACLU’s ultimate relief at the bill’s rejection, “All of us at the ACLU are taking a big breath of relief.”
She continues, “We opposed AB 1814 alongside multiple survivors of facial recognition-fueled wrongful arrests. Lawmakers should take this movement and the failure of AB 1814 as a mandate to protect their constituents from this privacy-eviscerating technology. The only surefire way to do that is by prohibiting the police from using it.”
