Government privacy watchdog under pressure to recommend facial recognition ban

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https://thehill.com/policy/technology/480152-government-privacy-watchdog-under-pressure-to-recommend-facial-recognition

Government privacy watchdog under pressure to recommend facial recognition ban

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The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent agency, is coming under increasing pressure to recommend the federal government stop using facial recognition.

Forty groups, led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, sent a letter Monday to the agency calling for the suspension of facial recognition systems "pending further review."
“The rapid and unregulated deployment of facial recognition poses a direct threat to ‘the precious liberties that are vital to our way of life,'" the advocacy groups wrote.
The PCLOB "has a unique responsibility, set out in statute, to assess technologies and polices that impact the privacy of Americans after 9-11 and to make recommendations to the President and executive branch," they wrote.

The agency, created in 2004, advises the administration on privacy issues....

"While we're trying to figure out ... what's all happening, let's just not expand it," said ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), later telling reporters that legislation was being drafted to gather information on the use of facial recognition and pause the practice while doing so.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing on facial recognition earlier this month, when lawmakers on both sides of the aisle suggested some version of a freeze on the technology.

Frozen - some version of a freeze.jpg

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