Tag: biometrics

Digital IDs: The system of surveillance using biometrics does not require a physical ID card

When Harvey Eugene Murphy Jr. visited his home state of Texas to get his driving licence renewed, he never imagined the trip would result in him being wrongfully arrested and assaulted in jail.

Yet that is precisely what happened to the 61-year-old grandfather thanks to Houston Police’s reliance on facial recognition technology.

Murphy was arrested in relation to the armed robbery of a Sunglass Hut store in Houston. But while the real thieves were making off with thousands of dollars in cash and merchandise, Murphy was back home in California, nowhere near the scene. By the time the Harris County District Attorney’s office in Texas figured that out, it was already too late – three men had sexually assaulted Murphy in a bathroom in jail, leaving him with permanent injuries.

“Mr Murphy’s story is troubling for every citizen in this country,” said Daniel Dutko, a lawyer representing Murphy. “Any person could be improperly charged with a crime based on error-prone facial recognition software, just as he was.”

If you think that such things could never happen in the UK, think again. Some British police forces already use facial recognition tech. London’s Met Police use it on the streets routinely. It was also used last year to watch crowds at the King’s Coronation, at an Arsenal v Tottenham match, at a Beyonce gig, and even on F1 Grand Prix day at Silverstone.

According to civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, since the Met Police started using facial recognition tech, 85% of all matches identified by the system were wrong. The figure for South Wales police is even worse: 90% of matches were incorrect. “We’ve [personally] witnessed people being wrongly stopped by the police because facial recognition misidentified them,” the group said in a report.

Despite these disastrous figures, policing minister Chris Phelps wrote to police chiefs last October urging them to “double the number of [facial recognition] searches by May 2024, so they exceed 200,000 across England and Wales.”

“This dangerously authoritarian technology has the potential to turn populations into walking ID cards in a constant police lineup,” said Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch.

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New Report Finds Police Continue To Use Facial Recognition Even After It’s Banned

A major report in the Washington Post has found that law enforcement officers in U.S. several cities where facial recognition tech is banned for police have asked neighboring forces to search face databases for them.

Facial recognition has been prohibited in San Francisco since 2019. But Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s former district attorney, sums up the problem: “Police are using it but not saying they are using it.” The Post says the SFPD have outsourced at least five attempts to make facial matches. Some of these were done by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), a “multi-jurisdiction program serving law enforcement agencies in the region.” Others were farmed out to the Daly City Police Department. None were successful.

Police in Austin, Texas, however – also among the biggest U.S. cities to ban facial recognition – recorded 13 requests to a neighboring department for assistance with biometric face matching, and some of these led to arrests. Austin city employees are barred from using facial recognition as well as “information obtained” from the technology, with certain exceptions. But the suburb of Leander, just a 30-minute drive north of Austin, has no such restriction.

Leander’s police force has access to Clearview AI, which has courted many law enforcement agencies in the U.S., despite lingering questions about whether its method of scraping the public internet for facial images is 100 percent consensual. According to the Post, the Leander force also has a recognized Clearview AI “influencer”: Officer David Wilson, who performed several searches for the Austin force via Leander’s Clearview account. Emails seen by the Post show that officers contacted Wilson directly for the express purpose of requesting facial recognition searches.

Clearview, to its credit, officially prohibits their clients in law enforcement from sharing access to accounts. Yet anyone with a Netflix subscription knows that formal rules only matter if they are enforced. Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That has publicly promised customers that Clearview will try and close the loophole that allows police to export results of facial scans, even if they cannot share access. But Wilson sent most of his facial recognition results to Austin via email.

KXAN reports that Austin city council gave a statement saying the city was unaware of the complaint regarding police outsourcing facial recognition, and that investigations are underway.

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European Council Approves the AI Act — a Law Accused of Legalizing Biometric Mass Surveillance

The EU’s European Council has followed the European Parliament (EP) in approving the AI Act – which opponents say is a way for the bloc to legalize biometric mass surveillance.

More than that, the EU is touting the legislation as first of its kind in the world, and seems hopeful it will serve as a standard for AI regulation elsewhere around the globe.

The Council announced the law is “groundbreaking,” taking a “risk-based” approach, meaning that the EU authorities get to grade the level of risk from AI to society and then impose rules of various levels of severity and penalties, including money fines for companies deemed to be infringing the act.

What this “granular” approach to “risk level” looks like is revealed in the fact that what the EU chooses to consider cognitive behavioral manipulation “unacceptable,” while AI use in education and facial recognition is “high risk. “Limited risk” applies to chatbots.

And developers will be under obligation to register in order to have the “risk” assessed before their apps become available to users in the EU.

The AI Act’s ambition, according to the EU, is to promote both the development and uptake, as well as investment in systems that it considers “safe and trustworthy,” targeting both private and public sectors for this type of regulation.

A press release said that the law “provides exemptions such as for systems used exclusively for military and defense as well as for research purposes.”

After the act is formally published, it will within three weeks come into effect across the 27-member countries.

Back in March, when the European Parliament approved the act, one of its members, Patrick Breyer of the German Pirate Party, slammed the preceding trilogue negotiations as “intransparent.”

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Appeals Court Upholds Police Right to Compel Biometric Device Unlocking

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued an opinion in a case involving the police forcing a suspect to unlock their phone via a biometric feature on the device.

The court said this practice, at least in the case it considered, is not unconstitutional.

The appeal was lodged by Jeremy Payne, a defendant in a drug distribution case, who was forced (“compelled”) by the police to unlock his phone with his thumbprint.

We obtained a copy of the opinion for you here.

Payne was hoping to have his motion to suppress evidence accepted – after this was previously denied by a district court – but the Court of Appeals found that obtaining evidence in this way does not mean that the police violated his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

And while the appellate court said that other circuits and the Supreme Court are yet to rule if the forced use of a biometric to unlock a device is “testimonial” – in this case, the forcible use of the suspect’s thumb “required no cognitive exertion, placing it firmly in the same category as a blood draw or fingerprint taken at booking.”

The three-judge panel was satisfied that the police could have accomplished the same task “even if Payne had been unconscious” – so they saw no evidence of the suspect and later defendant being driven to engage in self-incrimination.

Namely, the physical action of forcibly pressing the thumb onto the device “did not intrude on the contents of Payne’s mind.”

Another reason the judges sided with the police is that Payne was not made to “acknowledge the existence of any incriminating information” – he was “merely” forced to provide access “to a source of potential information.”

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Major League Baseball’s biometric ticketing collects 6K opening day hits

Fans entered a stadium with biometrics during the opening day of the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) season, one of four ballparks to deploy the technology, and the league has high hopes for the touchless access program.

The Washington Nationals added biometric ticketing to their opening day lineup through MLB’s Go-Ahead Entry. The introduction of Go-Ahead Entry allows fans attending Nationals games to use the MLB Ballpark app for touchless entry at gates equipped with dedicated hardware.

Fans using the optional service register their biometrics with a selfie and then use facial authentication to enter at full walking speed through dedicated gates. Four lanes have been deployed at Nationals Park in D.C. Two of those are on the west end of the Park’s center field gates, another in center field, and one more on the first-base side of the stadium.

The rollout in Washington follows trials last year at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia last year. Those trials showed the biometric lines moving 68 percent faster, and 2.5 times more people passing through them than the fastest lane using physical or smartphone-based tickets, reports the Fredericksburg Free Press. The Phillies have taken their deployment stadium-wide for the 2024 season.

Prior to that, face biometrics were used for entry to New York Mets games with Wicket technology, and to Cleveland Guardians games with Clear’s technology.

The facial recognition technology for MLB’s Go-Ahead Entry was developed by NEC, according to an April 1 ESPN report.

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JPMorgan To Roll Out Controversial Biometric Payments

America’s largest bank and one of the largest in the world, J.P. Morgan, is preparing to launch biometric payments next year and is currently carrying out pilot projects.

J.P. Morgan has chosen PopID – which verifies a person’s identity via facial recognition, among other methods – as the backbone for the project.

The massive financial corporation is clearly unwilling to be left behind the likes of Mastercard or Visa, who are both implementing biometrics-powered payments.

According to the bank, one of the first events where this was trialed was the Formula 1 race in Miami, and that was also the first time this happened at a Formula 1 venue.

The ultimate goal is to expand authentication based on individuals’ fingerprints, palms, and faces to anyone interested, but with a focus on stores, restaurants, and various event venues.

J.P. Morgan says this will be a faster and safer, as well as “personalized” way for customers to pay, while those with things to sell are promised higher turnover and improved customer loyalty, but also a centralized place to access transactions and marketing data, say reports.

And what’s in it for the bank, other than potentially amassing large amounts of biometric data? Merchants will have the opportunity to buy J.P. Morgan Payments tablets, though this will not be obligatory, but support and transaction processing fees will be.

In a statement, the bank revealed that it is betting on biometric payments as the industry is forecast to grow to 3 billion users and $5.8 trillion worth of transactions over the next two years. And the giant expects digital commerce to eventually cover online, mobile, and in-store checkout.

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WEF: Biometric Digital ID Cards Could Track Vaccination Status, Dutch Queen Máxima Says at Davos

The introduction of biometric digital identity cards could be used by governments to track “who actually got a vaccination or not,” Queen Máxima of the Netherlands said at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this week.

Queen Máxima, a longtime social justice campaigner who has served as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA) since 2009, urged for the wider adoption of biometric digital ID cards globally during a WEF panel discussion titled “Comparing Notes on Financial Inclusion” on Thursday.

“When I started this job, there were actually very little countries in Africa or Latin America that had one ubiquitous type of ID, and certainly that was digital and certainly that was biometric… We’ve really worked with all our partners to actually help grow this, and the interesting part of it is that yes, it is very necessary for financial services, but not only.”

Aside from financial services, the Argentinian-born Dutch Queen went on to argue that the use of digital IDs could be used to keep track of “school enrolment” and to help people to receive welfare from the government.

In addition, Queen Máxima argued that digital IDs are “good for health” in that governments could use the system to track “who actually got a vaccination or not”.

The Dutch Queen has also been one of the leading proponents of the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to increase “financial inclusion”. While CBDCs function similarly to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, they are not based on a decentralised network but rather controlled by a central bank, which critics argue could potentially give the government the ability to track all financial transactions made by the public.

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Achtung! US Travel To Europe Will Require Prior Approval, Biometric Scanning

Traveling to most European countries is about to get more complicated and invasive for American citizens: In spring 2025, you’ll have to first request permission.  And you’ll be saying adieu to passport stamps and ciao to facial and fingerprint scans — and having your biometric data stored in an enormous government database. 

On Friday, an agency of the European Union announced the updated timing for the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS), which has first set to roll out in 2024. It applies to travelers from more than 60 countries that are currently exempt from visa requirements. Those countries have an aggregate population of 1.4 billion. 

As is the case today, Americans won’t need a visa, but they will need to apply in advance for permission to visit any of 30 EU countries for stays lasting up to 90 days. It will cost about $8 to apply, with requests submitted via the official ETIAS website or ETIAS mobile app. With activation of the process more than a year away, neither is yet configured to collect applications. ETIAS assures the public that most applications will be processed in minutes. 

The approval will be tied to your passport, and will be valid for up to three years or until your passport expires, whichever comes earlier. Once you have it, you’ll be able to visit as much as you want, so long as it’s a “short-term stay,” which generally means up to 90 days in a 180-day period. 

ETIAS recommends applying for permission “well in advance” of your trip, but doesn’t specify what that means. The agency does caution that the approval period “could be extended by up to 14 days if you are requested to provide additional information or documentation, or up to 30 days if you are invited to an interview.” There’s no indication where such interviews would be conducted or by whom. 

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Biometrics Look Increasingly Likely for Schools Afraid of Gun Attacks

When U.S. state of New York schools got the OK last week to use biometric systems short of facial recognition, the move gave more momentum to policies arming teachers with guns.

One of the first reactions came from the Security Industry Association, which criticized the fact that the state’s department of education continued to bar face biometrics collection of any kinds on school grounds.

The board announced that other biometrics systems can be used by schools so long as boards examine how doing so would affect privacy and civil rights, how effective the systems would be and how parents feel about the idea.

SIA members had opposed a three-year temporary complete ban on biometrics investment while campus deployment of facial recognition systems, specifically, could be studied. The ban’s lift largely followed recommendations of that report.

The group largely blames the continuing prohibition on face scans on “intense pressure” from the American Civil Liberties Union, which had filed a lawsuit to prevent a school district from putting AI behind CCTV networks.

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Twitter can now harvest YOUR ‘biometric’ information including fingerprint, face recognition and eye tracking data – as Musk’s site quietly updates its T&Cs ‘for safety purposes’

The social media platform formerly known as Twitter can now harvest your biometric data and DNA.

A new update quietly added to the platform’s privacy policy says that X now has permission to harvest its users’ fingerprints, retinal scans, voice and face recognition and keystroke patterns.

The update would mean that anyone who uses fingerprint verification to log in to the app from their phone, posts selfies or videos to the platform or speaks their mind on X ‘spaces’ could see their unique biometric data catalogued by the company. 

The new policy, which describes its interest in users’ biometrics as ‘for safety, security, and identification purposes,’ also added the platform’s intent to scrape up data on users’ job history, educational background and ‘job search activity.’

The move follows nearly a year of turmoil for the microblogging app, which has included Musk requesting that its users pay subscription fees for premium services and verification: part of his larger plan to recover from cratering advertising revenue.

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