ST. PAUL, Minn. (April 18, 2025) – A bill introduced in the Minnesota House would ban the use of facial recognition technology for surveillance by government agencies. The proposed law would not only help protect privacy in Minnesota; it could also hinder one aspect of the federal surveillance state.
Rep. Aisha Gomez and a bipartisan coalition of cosponsors filed House Bill 3146 (HF3146). The legislation would prohibit any state or local government entity or official from using, obtaining, accessing, or retaining a “face surveillance system” or information obtained from such a system. It would also bar state agencies from entering into an agreement or arrangement with a private entity to obtain, retain, access, or use any face surveillance system, along with any information obtained from a face surveillance system.
A face surveillance system is defined as “an automated or semiautomated process that assists in identifying an individual or capturing information about an individual, based on the physical characteristics of an individual’s face.”
Under the proposed law, any information obtained in violation of the law would be inadmissible in any trial, hearing, or other proceedings in or before any authority subject to state law.
A party injured due to a violation of the law could bring action against the offending government agency and would be entitled to damages.
IMPACT ON FEDERAL PROGRAMS
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.
A 2019 report revealed that the federal government has turned state driver’s 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 wasn’t new. The federal government has been developing a massive facial recognition system for years.
The FBI rolled out a nationwide facial recognition program in the fall of 2014, intending to build 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 “The Perpetual Lineup,” a massive report on law enforcement use of facial recognition technology in the U.S. You can read the complete report at 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.
“Face recognition is a powerful technology that requires strict oversight. But those controls, by and large, don’t exist today,” report co-author Clare Garvie said. “With 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. It’s a wild west.”
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 the Information Sharing Environment (ISE).
Fusion centers operate within the broader ISE. In effect, the network serves as a conduit for the sharing of information gathered by multiple agencies across the country, generally without a warrant. Known ISE partners include the Office of Director of National Intelligence which oversees 17 federal agencies and organizations, including the NSA.
By funding state and local surveillance programs, the feds can obtain warrantless data without having to expend the resources to collect it themselves. By restricting the collection of data at the state and local levels, legislation such as HF3146 simultaneously limits the information available for the feds to access.
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 doesn’t exist cannot be entered into federal databases.
WHAT’S NEXT
HF3146 was referred to the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee, where it must get a hearing and pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.
