Facial Recognition

A recent incident at Radio City Music Hall involving the mother of a Girl Scout is shedding light on the growing controversy of facial recognition, as critics claim it is being used to target perceived enemies — in this case, by one of the most famous companies in the country.

Two House committees have launched an investigation into the government’s use of facial recognition software.

Starting summer 2022, the IRS is requiring taxpayers to create an account with identity verification company ID.me to access certain tools and applications.

The city of Worcester has become the latest Massachusetts city to prohibit the use of facial recognition technology by city government. The Worcester City Council voted Tuesday night to prohibit city departments from acquiring or using the technology. Critics say facial recognition systems have the potential to violate personal privacy and are more likely to err when identifying people with…

State lawmakers across the U.S. are reconsidering the tradeoffs of facial recognition technology amid civil rights and racial bias concerns

A New Jersey man sued police and prosecutors, claiming he was wrongly arrested and jailed after facial recognition software mistakenly linked him to a hotel theft, NBC News reported. Nijeer Parks, 33, a Black man from Paterson, said his grandmother told him on Jan. 30, 2019, that an arrest warrant had been issued for him, according to the civil lawsuit…

Rape, murder, armed robbery. Miami Police say they’ve made arrests in those violent crimes and in property crimes using a controversial facial recognition program, Clearview AI. The department says the technology has helped them to identify 28 people linked to crimes. “It’s really being a game changer for us,” said Miami Police Assistant Chief Armando Aguilar.  The department started using...

The first cargo-carrying robot marketed directly to consumers is on sale this holiday season. But how many people are ready to ditch their second car to buy a two-wheeled rover that can follow them around like a dog? Corporate giants like Amazon, FedEx and Ford have already been experimenting with sending delivery robots to doorsteps. Now Piaggio, the Italian company...

Ring, the video doorbell company owned by Amazon, has helped law enforcement agencies across the country solve a lot of crimes. But it has also raised concerns about privacy, and critics have been sounding off on social media for months. Tech writers, meanwhile, have wondered if Ring users were getting the full story about the cameras they’d attached to their...

Lenovo’s Motorola on Wednesday announced a new version of the iconic Razr flip phone. It has a full touch screen display inside — no keypad — but still folds in half like the clamshell design of phones from the 1990s and early 2000s. I like the throwback design. It will succeed the Samsung Galaxy Fold as the second foldable phone...

Concert promoters in the U.S. are stepping back from plans to scan festivalgoers with facial recognition technology, after musicians and others gave it some serious side-eye. Although it remains entirely possible that music venues will eventually take a second look at the controversial technology.

A woman had quite a shock when she went to load groceries into her pickup truck at a western New York supermarket

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit seeking information about how the state transportation department uses its driver’s license database for face surveillance purposes. The ACLU said Wednesday it filed public records requests in February and April seeking more information, including about the sharing of the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles’ database.

Maine’s secretary of state says his agency isn’t going to let federal agents have open-ended access to a new identification database. Effective this month, Maine residents are now able to get a driver’s license or identification card that’s compliant with Real ID. Congress passed the federal Real ID law after the 2001 terrorist attacks to strengthen rules for government-sanctioned...

Maine’s secretary of state says his agency isn’t going to let federal agents have open-ended access to a new identification database. Effective this month, Maine residents are now able to get a driver’s license or identification card that’s compliant with Real ID. Congress passed the federal Real ID law after the 2001 terrorist attacks to strengthen rules for government-sanctioned...

Civil rights activists complained Monday of the potential for widespread abuse following confirmation that at least three states have scanned millions of driver’s license photos on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement without the drivers’ knowledge or consent. Public records obtained by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology provided the first proof that ICE had sought such scans,...

Civil rights activists complained Monday of the potential for widespread abuse following confirmation that at least three states have scanned millions of driver’s license photos on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement without the drivers’ knowledge or consent. Public records obtained by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology provided the first proof that ICE had sought such scans,...

House Speaker Robert DeLeo is assuring visitors to the Massachusetts Statehouse they’re not being subjected to facial recognition. In a written statement, the Winthrop Democrat says: “There is no such technology used at the State House.”

Despite pressure from civil rights groups, activist investors and its own employees, Amazon said Wednesday that shareholders at an annual meeting in Seattle voted against proposals related to two major social issues: climate change and facial recognition technology. The two proposals on facial recognition had asked Amazon to stop selling its technology to government agencies, saying that it could be...