CONCORD, N.H. (Dec. 26, 2023) – A bill prefiled in the New Hampshire House would effectively ban government surveillance using facial recognition in the state. The passage of this bill would not only help protect privacy in New Hampshire, but it would also hinder one aspect of the federal surveillance state.
Rep. Thomas Cormen along with a bipartisan coalition of 10 legislators filed House Bill 1688 (HB1688) on Dec. 15. Provisions in the legislation would prohibit AI used for “real-time and remote biometric identification systems used for surveillance in public spaces, such as facial recognition, except when used to locate a missing or abducted person.”
AI is an important aspect of all current facial recognition systems. ReFaces is a biometrics company that sells facial recognition systems. According to its website, “the majority of modern facial recognition algorithms have some semblance of integrated deep learning and neural network.”
“Intelligent, AI-based software can instantaneously search databases of faces and compare them to one or multiple faces that are detected in a scene. In an instant, you can get highly accurate results.”
In effect, the passage of HB 1688 would ban government facial recognition surveillance in public spaces.
IMPACT ON FEDERAL PROGRAMS
Aย 2019 report revealedย that the federal government has turned state driverโs license photos into a giant facial recognition database, putting virtually every driver in America in a perpetual electronic police lineup. The revelations generated widespread outrage, but the story wasnโt new. The federal government has been developingย a massive facial recognition systemย for years.
The FBIย rolled out a nationwide facial recognition programย in the fall of 2014, with the goal of building a giant biometric database with pictures provided by the states and corporate friends.
In 2016, the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law released โThe Perpetual Lineup,โ a massive report on law enforcement use of facial recognition technology in the U.S. You can read the complete report atย perpetuallineup.org. The organization conducted a year-long investigation and collected more than 15,000 pages of documents through more than 100 public records requests. The report paints a disturbing picture of intense cooperation between the federal government, and state and local law enforcement to develop a massive facial recognition database.
โFace recognition is a powerful technology that requires strict oversight. But those controls, by and large, donโt exist today,โ report co-authorย Clare Garvie said. โWith only a few exceptions, there are no laws governing police use of the technology, no standards ensuring its accuracy, and no systems checking for bias. Itโs a wild west.โ
Despite the outrage generated by these reports, Congress has done nothing to roll back this facial recognition program.
There areย many technical and legal problemsย with facial recognition, including significant concerns about the accuracy of the technology, particularly when reading the facial features of minority populations. During a test run by the ACLU of Northern California,ย facial recognition misidentified 26 members of the California legislatureย as people in a database of arrest photos.
With facial recognition technology, police and other government officials can track individuals in real time. These systems allow law enforcement agents to use video cameras and continually scan everybody who walks by. According to the report, several major police departments have expressed an interest in this type of real-time tracking. Documents revealed agencies in at least five major cities, including Los Angeles, either claimed to run real-time face recognition off of street cameras, bought technology with the capability, or expressed written interest in buying it.
In all likelihood, the federal government heavily involves itself in helping state and local agencies obtain this technology. The feds provide grant money to local law enforcement agencies for a vast array of surveillance gear, including ALPRs, stingray devices and drones. The federal government essentially encourages and funds a giant nationwide surveillance net and then taps into the information via fusion centers and the Information Sharing Environment (ISE).
Fusion centers were sold as a tool to combat terrorism, but that is not how they are being used. The ACLU pointed to aย bipartisan congressional reportย to demonstrate the true nature of government fusion centers: โThey havenโt contributed anything meaningful to counterterrorism efforts. Instead, they have largely served as police surveillance and information sharing nodes for law enforcement efforts targeting the frequent subjects of police attention: Black and brown people, immigrants, dissidents, and the poor.โ
Fusion centers operate within the broader ISE. According toย its website, the ISE โprovides analysts, operators, and investigators with information needed to enhance national security. These analysts, operators, and investigatorsโฆhave mission needs to collaborate and share information with each other and with private sector partners and our foreign allies.โ In other words, ISE serves as a conduit for the sharing of information gathered without a warrant.ย Known ISE partners include the Office of Director of National Intelligence which oversees 17 federal agencies and organizations, including the NSA. ISE utilizes these partnerships to collect and share data on the millions of unwitting people they track.
Reports that the Berkeley Police Department in cooperation with a federal fusion center deployed camerasย equipped to surveil a โfree speechโ rally and Antifa counterprotests provided the first solid link between the federal government and local authorities in facial recognition surveillance.
In a nutshell, without state and local cooperation, the feds have a much more difficult time gathering information. The passage of state laws and local ordinances banning and limiting facial recognition eliminates one avenue for gathering facial recognition data. Simply put, data that doesnโt exist cannot be entered into federal databases.
WHAT’S NEXT
HB1688 will be officially introduced when the New Hampshire legislature convenes on Jan. 3. It will be referred to the Houseย Executive Departments and Administration Committee where it must receive a hearing and a vote before moving forward in the legislative process. An โought to passโ recommendation would greatly increase the billโs chance of passage in the full House.
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