“There are many tools available to law enforcement, and facial recognition is one of those tools of convenience,” said Dr. Nicole Napolitano, research director at the Center for Police Equity. However, it is not without its pitfalls. Like PimEyes, tools like Clearview AI can make mistakes and misidentify people, leading to false arrests. “Police are increasingly relying on what the models are telling them and becoming biased by it,” Napolitano said.
“There is no constitution. “You have the right to cover your face in public,” Myers, the Manhattan Institute’s police chief, charged.
In fact, the legal landscape surrounding how law enforcement can use surveillance technology is murky, explains Beth Harolds, staff attorney at the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The main reason for this is that the law has not kept pace with technological advances. development.
For Harolds, the possibility of ubiquitous surveillance means that people don’t really have a reasonable expectation of privacy, a historically important legal standard. “(Surveillance) cameras aren’t just for the eyes of police officers,” she said. “They’re probably being monitored in real time, 24/7. They’re feeding images into artificial intelligence and, with the help of algorithms, they can track you down and show you different faces and places you’ve been.” ”
However, the legal haze may finally be starting to clear up.
This summer, a federal appeals court judge declared that geofencing warrants violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the ruling applies only to Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Similarly, a New York judge has ruled that warrantless phone searches at border crossings are unconstitutional. The ruling applies only to parts of New York, but also includes JFK Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country.
Mobile phone manufacturers are also making strides in technological solutions to subvert surveillance techniques. Google has announced that changes to the way it stores user location data will result in it no longer being compliant with future geofencing guarantees.
Still, it can be difficult for police to determine when to use surveillance technology. Tushar Joyce, a professor at the City University of New York who studies the intersection of privacy, technology and censorship, said police use surveillance technology “routinely discarding evidence in cases rather than sharing data.” Ta.
Beryl Lipton, a senior research fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology-focused civil liberties nonprofit, says much of what law enforcement officials previously could only dream of now He said it is becoming increasingly possible.
“I think there’s been a big shift in the way we need to think about what it means to have an expectation of privacy in public spaces,” Lipton said.
Half a century ago, Lipton explained that you could see someone following you on the street and listening to your conversations. Currently, that kind of surveillance is less obvious.
“That’s something we really need to reevaluate as a country,” she added. “We don’t want to be in the position of essentially trying to live a life where we’re constantly being followed and listened to, whether as protesters or just as ordinary people.”
(Tag translation) Privacy
