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Facial Recognition May Be Banned From Public Housing Thanks To Proposed Law (cnet.com) 76

Lawmakers in Congress are expected to introduce landmark legislation this week that will ban facial recognition technology from public housing. Called the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act, the proposed bill would prohibit housing units that receive funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development from using technology like facial recognition. It would also require HUD to submit a report on facial recognition, detailing its impact on public housing units and their tenants. CNET reports: This would be the first federal bill that looks at what technology landlords can impose on tenants. While the law would only affect HUD housing, it could raise awareness for a broader set of landlords and tenants, and it comes as people are increasingly questioning the threats to privacy that stem from facial recognition. The only other federal bill on facial recognition is the Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act, introduced in March by Sens. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, and Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii. There also aren't any laws on technology that landlords can impose on tenants. More than 20,000 homes in the last two years have been converted into smart homes by landlords, even as tenants complain about privacy concerns and issues with faulty locks.
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Facial Recognition May Be Banned From Public Housing Thanks To Proposed Law

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  • This is public housing that receives government funding. To prevent abuse, maintain security and deter crime, I'd do just the opposite -- I'd make cameras with facial recognition mandatory at all exits and entrances. If you aren't ok with that, get private, non-subsidized housing. When you receive subsidies and funds from the government there should ALWAYS be strings attached to encourage those services only to be used by people who truly need them and to help eliminate crime and abuse of the service.
    • First, they came for public housing...

      I know. Slippery slope and all that, yet, it seems like the government, hereafter known as PTB (Powers That Be), so often begins the assault on civil liberties against the people beneath the most of us.

      "Why should that idiot have the rights?" quickly becomes "How did we get so many idiots." Each, and every time.

    • public housing can't ban you right to an gun

  • by Anonymous Coward

    ... you jaywalk, you get thrown out of your rented "smart" home due to "low social credit". Not that you'd notice, as you can't even get to the place any longer, or at least not by PT.

    It's easy to imagine this being horribly abused. But what if you'd change the deal? Instead of using it as a door lock, use it as a charging mechanism. Stay overnight, get charged, by the face. Of course, if you're not home for two weeks straight, that's your two weeks notice and they'll let whoever walks up next in and take t

  • We are chipping all of our hobos.

  • Why do they require a public housing development to submit a report about the impact of a technology in their building they are going to be forbidden from using in the first place?
  • They are welcome to introduce this legislation but -

    Republicans and the president will stop it; reverse it, making it mandatory. Especially if there are any 'people of color' on the property. Landlords will not only put up cameras, they'll be required to share their footage with the administration's jackboot footsoldiers.

    You can bet all the Trump properties are wired with cameras and microphones. By many agencies, domestic and foreign. Possibly even by the Trump organization.

    • by kenh ( 9056 )

      Ha-Ha - jokes on them. Facial recognition is notoriously poor with people of color.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Don't thank them, facial recognition would also track politicians and corrupt corporate executives and their enforcers and they could not figure out how to fuck over the rest of us without fucking over themselves. Facial recognition is cheap thanks to a much smarter design and everyone can access and share it information, those at the bottom as much as those at the top. Hence the ban, not to protect us but to protect the corrupt at the top.

  • The same folks that insist that we don't need any 14th century solutions (walls) on the southern US border, instead calling for AI and "smart" technology as a 21st century solution are demanding that HUD-sponsored housing eschew 21st century security measures?

    Seems odd.

    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The same folks that insist that we don't need any 14th century solutions (walls) on the southern US border, instead calling for AI and "smart" technology as a 21st century solution are demanding that HUD-sponsored housing eschew 21st century security measures?

      Walls don't work. They look impressive and intuitively, it looks like it should work. But they don't.

      Because they're easy to go around. Or more specifically, over. And not "we'll build it another 100 feet higher - no ladder is that tall" over. I'm talk

  • Aww, what a shame. I thought the article said *Facebook* is banned from public housing...

  • Most of these places use a mag-stripe reader or RFID card. There is already a record of every person's access. The cards are usually pretty generic looking and shared among family members.

    Further, halfway houses and shelters use an RFID card with the assigned owner's picture on them.

  • Does that mean that a resident can't install a doorbell that uses facial recognition??

    Or just the owner of the building.

    Just wondering....

    And no .. I didn't read the article. Because I don't care, I'll never live there. I've got a boat I'll move into before every moving into government support housing. It's safer. And I have more rights.

  • Reps. Yvette Clarke, a Democrat from New York; Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts; and Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, are expected to introduce the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act this week.

    In other words, it's just posturing. Probably won't get out of committee in the House, has no chance in the Senate, and wouldn't be signed by the President anyway.

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