Imprisoned Because of FRT Misidentification And 2021 Predictions
Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition) Issue 7
Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition) documents trends in the surveillance of public space. Curated by Rebecca Williams and Madeleine Smith as part of "smart city" surveillance research for the Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Subscribe now so you don’t miss an issue and help us spread the word to folks who would enjoy this content.
Hindsight is 2020 and 2021 Predictions
Our favs from this week, see also last week’s Top 10 Surveillance Sagas issue.
CNET’s The best facial recognition security cameras of the year. One of these is $83, which is less than what Rebecca just spent on a new blender.
Computer Weekly’s Top 10 technology and ethics stories of 2020.
EFF’s Banning Government Use of Face Recognition Technology: 2020 Year in Review.
Law 360’s Cybersecurity & Privacy Cases To Watch In 2021. “With federal courts keeping alive claims in Marriott and Capital One's data breach suits, facial recognition app Clearview AI claiming a First Amendment right to scrape billions of photos from the internet, and retail giants facing a test of the limits of California's privacy law, 2021 should be another busy year for cybersecurity and privacy litigation.”
Singularity Hub’s Favorite Tech Stories From Around the Web in 2020.
Voice of San Diego’s Lessons From the Year in Surveillance Tech Debacles. “Governments continue to invest in body cameras, smart streetlights, drones, and other smart devices. But there are value sets embedded in any form of technology, and officials ignore this reality at the risk of exacerbating rather than flattening inequities.”
Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Weekly Update
City Watch
Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. - “‘If we don’t have witnesses to come forward, then our only other option is more [police] technology,’” Mayor Randall Woodfin said. [WBHM]
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - Hockey COVID-19 Surveillance combines wearables and facial recognition technology for proximity and temperature checks. [NBC Sports]
Gurugram, India - “Gurugram will use artificial intelligence-enabled CCTV network for surveillance and traffic monitoring; the system will also be capable of crowd detection, spotting unidentified objects and facial recognition.” [The Hindu]
Patterson, New Jersey, U.S. - “Another Arrest, and Jail Time, Due to a Bad Facial Recognition Match. A New Jersey man was accused of shoplifting and trying to hit an officer with a car. He is the third known Black man to be wrongfully arrested based on face recognition.” [NY Times, see also Law and Crime, Axios, Washington Post’s Editorial Board, and many others]
Singapore - “Singapore police can access COVID-19 contact tracing data for criminal investigations” [ZD Net]
Market Watch
Facial recognition technology - “Facial recognition technology no longer applies only to identifying humans.” [8KPAX]
India - “Inside India’s booming dark data economy. Thanks to lax privacy laws and high consumer demand, details on everything from how you shop to who you date are all for sale.” [Rest of World]
Smart cities -
“Cities are betting big on smart streetlights — 23% will be connected by 2030” [Cities Today, see also Best Gaming Pro]
“In other words — the population is in place, the funding might recover and eventually, so will the infrastructure investment. The timeline may shift a bit, but the movement toward smart cities will be inexorable.” [Pyments]
“Cisco Systems Pulls Back From Smart City Push. The challenge of modernizing the urban landscape has intensified with the pandemic pressuring public budgets.” [The Wall Street Journal]
U.S. - “Companies are fleeing California. Blame bad government.” [Bloomberg Opinion]
Policy Watch
Buenos Aires, Brasilia, and Uruguay - “Now, even as the global movement behind banning facial recognition gains steam, these governments are working to make these privacy-invasive practices official.” [Access Now]
China - “Yue Zhongming, spokesman for the Legislative Affairs Commission of China’s legislature, said on Monday morning that the proposed Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) will make clear that sensitive information such as facial biometrics must be “used for specific purposes and only when sufficiently necessary”, and that a risk assessment should be conducted in advance.” [The Star]
Hangzhou, China - “In November, a court in the provincial capital of Hangzhou ordered a park to compensate one of its regular visitors and delete his facial information...The court agreed with him, but refused to invalidate the park’s new rulemaking biometric information the only form of admission.” [Telegraph India]
India - “Facial recognition technology: law yet to catch up” provides an overview of activists seeking to regulate FRT in India, citing new U.S. laws. [The Hindu]
Massachusetts, U.S. (Update) - Berkshire Legislator Disappointed With Failure To Ban Facial Recognition Technology In Reform Bill” [WAMC, see also Ourmidland, Boston.com]
Portland, Oregon (Update) - “Beginning Jan. 1, private entities, including businesses, in Portland will be banned from using facial recognition technology “in places of public accommodation.” [KTVB7, see also Albany Democrat-Herald]
U.S. Federal - “In 2022, the US government will require every new mass-produced drone weighing over 0.55 pounds (0.25 kg) to broadcast your location — and I do mean your location, not just the location of your drone.” [The Verge, see Alphabet’s drone delivery subsidiary Wing’s response]
Various Global Cities - “Southeast Asia is increasingly seen as a battleground between the U.S. and China, but that undersells the region’s ability to chart its own path.” [Rest of World]
Various Global Cities - “Expect more collaboration between the US and its traditional allies in relation to China on a range of issues, including human rights, intellectual property protection, semiconductor development, 5G network roll-outs and last but not least – data privacy.” [South China Morning Post]
Various Global Cities - “From the US to China, Korea, India and Europe, antitrust action against tech is gaining serious momentum.” [TechCrunch]
Watching the Watchers Watch
Various Global Cities - “Mapped: The Top Surveillance Cities Worldwide”
Bonus Section...Non-Tech Solutionism to Watch, um, Flip Through
🌆 Next City’s 20 Best Solutions of 2020 slideshow features 20 ideas for cities and none include technology or invasive data collection... though one mentions Airbnb as a metaphor which we will pretend did not happen.