New Map Shows Where America's Police, Businesses Are Using Facial Recognition and Other Surveillance Tech

"Fight For the Future, a tech-focused nonprofit, on Thursday released its Ban Facial Recognition map, logging the states and cities using surveillance technology," reports CNET -- noting that "surveillance technology" in this case includes Amazon's Ring doorbell security cameras. A CNET investigation earlier this year highlighted the close ties between Ring and police departments across the US, many of which offer free or discounted Ring doorbells using taxpayer money. The cameras have helped police create an easily accessible surveillance network in neighborhoods and allowed law enforcement to request videos through an app. The arrangement has critics worried about the erosion of privacy. Until the release of Fight for the Future's map, there was no comprehensive directory of all the police departments that had partnered with Ring. Now you can find them by going on the map and toggling it to "Police (Local)." It lists more than 40 cities where police have partnered with Amazon for Ring doorbells....

The map is far from complete. Police departments aren't always up front about the technology that they're using. On the interactive map, Fight for the Future asked visitors to send it any new entries to add to the map.... The map also has filters for airports, stores and stadiums that are using facial recognition, as well as states that provide driver's license photos to the FBI's database of faces...

. Fight for the Future's map also features a filter for regions where facial recognition use by government is banned. For now, that's only in San Francisco; Somerville, Massachusetts; and Oakland, California.
The group's deputy director told CNET that the map's goal is allowing people "to turn their ambient anxiety into effective action by pushing at the local and state level to ban this dangerous tech.

"No amount of regulation will fix the threat posed by facial recognition," he added. "It must be banned."

Is there any hope for the future?

[BanHammer]

Between Ring Cameras which has its eyes on us everytime we step out,Voice Assistants(Alexa etc) whoch record our every bedroom talk,5G phones which permanently track our location accurately,FB/Google which tracks our every click/type...the future looks really dystopian.

The more there are, the less they see

[SuperKendall]

Between Ring Cameras which has its eyes on us everytime we step out,Voice Assistants(Alexa etc) whoch record our every bedroom talk,5G phones which permanently track our location accurately,FB/Google which tracks our every click/type...

The future looks amazing because all of those things bring most people lots of benefit.

Anyone who cares about privacy cam be comforted that with so much data. no PEOPLE are paying attention any longer, just mindless algorithms scanning for whatever. If you don't care about p

Re:The more there are, the less they see

[Empiric]

is recorded but never viewed

It will be viewed when and if you interfere with the then-existing power structure. Don't assume you know what the nature of that will be in 10 years. The recording will still be there.

Re:

[charlie merritt]

Cataloging all that data will be done, probably soon if not now. Its value is unknown, but high. Questions like "Show me who engaged in (the now illegal activity)?" "Who was supporting my opponent, back when?" Those recording now will sell later.

Could be worse, you could get sucker^h^h marketed to with targeted ads like instant flash sales for YOU as you walk by. If you stop at, study, and walk off from a pair of shoes at the mall the next shoe store may have those shoes an "sale" for $5 less. Oh, th

Outsourced coding exercise

[Empiric]

SELECT * FROM BeastTable
WHERE IsCitizenProblematic = TRUE
AND ForeheadImageHash = @TargetHash
AND ForeheadImageHashCategory = 666

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

We still haven't reached peak social justice yet. I could barely stomach the last season of Doctor Who. Yeah the show was always kind of preachy but last season was especially bad.

Re:

[Aighearach]

You'll always have Fred Flintstone, and Mel the cook from Alice.

Translation

[RogueWarrior65]

This map will be used by criminals to find targets that DON'T have facial recognition.

THINK!

[Jim Sadler]

I love the doorbell cams and facial recognition needs to be everywhere ! Areas that use these things have property crimes so low that a crime is almost unheard of. And assaults are also throttled back. My only reservation is we don't need a system in which only the government can use these devices. Anyone should be able to collect data. It is simply about creating a system in which honesty prevails.