State Departments of Motor Vehicles are notorious for slow or bad service. They are also becoming more well known for aiding in the invasion of individuals’ privacy.
Tag: facial recognition
In a Wednesday Fox News video commentary, former New Jersey state Judge Andrew Napolitano describes the great privacy invasion capability of government entities in Great Britain using many cameras along with facial recognition software and databases of personal information. Further, notes Napolitano, the use of facial recognition by police for surveillance has already been approved in court in Britain. “The people in Great Britain have lost their right to be left alone,” asserts Napolitano.
“Tough for the British,” some Americans may say, “but there are privacy protections that will prevent that from happening in America.” However, Napolitano, who is the senior judicial analyst for Fox News, explains that “sadly” the same thing “has begun to happen here” in America. Napolitano points to facial recognition software being acquired by police in New York City, Chicago, and Orlando, as well as in “smaller police departments around the United States.”
In January, I wrote about a then-upcoming vote by Amazon shareholders on a resolution calling for the company’s board of directors to “prohibit sales of facial recognition technology to government agencies unless the Board concludes, after an evaluation using independent evidence, that the technology does not cause or contribute to actual or potential violations of civil and human rights.”
Here is an update. In May, in a vote of Amazon shareholders, a resolution to prevent the sales failed, receiving less than three percent of votes cast. Also, as noted in a Reuters report on the vote, a second proposal calling for the company to take the more limited step of studying how its Rekognition facial recognition technology harms civil rights and privacy also failed, receiving just 27.5 percent support.