Bill Would Constrain Some Police Use of Facial-Recognition Tools – By Patrick Tucker (Defense One) / Dec 9 2019
A 72-hour limit on tracking individuals would become the first, and somewhat arbitrary, federal line in the sand.
Police would need a warrant to use facial-recognition tools to track an individual for more than three days under a proposed law that would place the first federal limits on law enforcement’s use of the technology.
The bill’s sponsors, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware. and Mike Lee, R-Utah, say their Facial Recognition Technology Warrant Act would prevent the sorts of governmental abuses common in China and elsewhere.
Under the new law, a police officer could, for instance, run footage from her body camera device against a database of people with outstanding warrants and use facial recognition to find matches. But that officer would not be able to use networks of closed circuit cameras to track an individual for longer than three days.
The bill’s sponsors admit that the 72-hour limit is somewhat arbitrary. But they are seeking to strike a tricky balance between law enforcement groups that say facial recognition is a useful tool for solving and preventing crimes and privacy advocates who are pushing for more regulation or outright banning of the technology by police departments.
Continue to article: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/12/bill-would-constrain-some-police-use-facial-recognition-tools/161736/
