Lawmakers and industry stakeholders applauded NTIA’s announcement it would...
Lawmakers and industry stakeholders applauded NTIA’s announcement it would convene multistakeholder discussions on facial recognition technology. But some privacy advocates said the decision further avoids addressing the heart of the privacy issue. The talks are another step in implementing the…
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White House’s Privacy Bill of Rights (http://1.usa.gov/1hwy3KA), said NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling in a blog post Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/18B9klC). “Facial recognition technology has the potential to improve services for consumers, support innovation by businesses, and affect identification and authentication online and offline. However, the technology poses distinct consumer privacy challenges.” Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Al Franken, D-Minn. -- who has sent a letter to the NTIA asking the agency to conduct these talks (CD Nov 25 p10) and held a hearing on the issue -- called the announcement “great news for privacy.” He said “expansive facial recognition programs” from “major companies like Facebook and government agencies like the FBI” have shown that “while facial recognition can be useful, these programs don’t do enough to protect privacy -- and they are just the beginning of what is a growing technology.” Center for Digital Democracy Executive Director Jeff Chester disagreed, saying the announcement showed the NTIA was bowing to industry pressure. “Industry lobbyists pressed the NTIA to focus on creating a self-regulatory scheme for facial recognition, so marketers can expand without worry how they capture our physical features and combine it with other personal data,” he said. NTIA scheduled its first facial recognition meeting for Feb. 6, said the announcement.