On September 11, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its intention to significantly expand both the number of people required to submit biometrics during routine immigration applications and the types of biometrics that individuals must surrender. This new rule will apply to immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, and to people of all ages, including, for the first time, children under the age of 14. It would nearly double the number of people from whom DHS would collect biometrics each year, to more than six million. The biometrics DHS plans to collect include palm prints, voice prints, iris scans, facial imaging, and even DNA—which are far more invasive than DHS’s current biometric collection of fingerprints, photographs, and signatures.
With over nine thousand face scans in 2020 alone, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is a leading abuser of New Yorkers’ freedoms through its use of face recognition, a biased, broken, and invasive technology.
No government agency should use face recognition. There is special urgency to end the NYPD’s use of this dangerous technology given the department’s history of misconduct, and its failure to properly manage officer use of the technology. Join us in calling on City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to introduce and pass legislation banning government use of face recognition technology in New York City.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, universities across the country have rushed to adopt new apps and devices to monitor public health on campus. While a university's desire to keep its students safe is laudable, many of these programs come with numerous privacy and security concerns, especially when they force students, faculty, and staff to submit to surveillance.
This is why we need you to join our call on university leadership across the country to commit to our University App Mandate Pledge (UAMP). In a public health emergency, respect for privacy and security is essential for good public health outcomes. People must have trust in public health officials, which requires the opportunity to consent to (or withhold consent from) any surveillance measures put in place. This pledge is a chance for college officials to publicly commit to respecting the privacy, security, and consent of everyone they ask to return to campus.