New Yorkers are trying to save face.
Cameras backed by facial recognition software are popping up everywhere. Your iPhone might use facial recognition to log you into an app, or your apartment building might use it to unlock your building. And the police might use it to keep tabs on you.
So city council members in NYC are scrambling to introduce legislation that would curb its ability to violate people’s privacy.
Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander recently sponsored a bill that would require landlords who use facial recognition as a building key to also give residents physical keys, thus allowing tenants to opt out of the Big Brother stuff.
“We want to find a way to make it that New Yorkers can get and out [sic] of their homes without giving up their privacy,” Lander told Gothamist.
Another proposal would require that building owners who use biometric data register with the city so that it could compile the buildings in a database on its website. Others want businesses to have signs alerting visitors when the location uses facial recognition software.
The bills didn’t come out of thin air. They come from a growing worry about a panopticon. Brooklyn’s Atlantic Plaza Towers caused a firestorm this spring with its plans to implement facial recognition. More than 100 residents filed a legal objection, claiming the software could be used for tracking, or that, as some tests have found, it would mostly just recognize white faces.
While some residents are worried about the software being prone to abuse, others complain that right now, it’s just not practical.
“Many tenants have complained that the technology does not work,” said Christina Zhang, who lives in a Manhattan housing development with facial recognition software, according to the Wall Street Journal. “You’re doing this dance to get the camera to recognize you.”
Others want to ban the use of the technology altogether. San Francisco has barred its police force and other municipal departments from using facial recognition tech in policing. Some New York City residents want to do the same for landlords. While property owners say the software helps with security or curbs illegal subletting, others argue it could be dangerous.
All these arguments about convenience and security may not overcome a more profound unease about letting your landlord, or the cops, have a permanent digital copy of your face.
