Inauguration Week ft. DHS, DOD, DOJ, DOT, FAA, FCC, And FTC Policy News, Oh My
Whose Streets? Our Streets! (Tech Edition) Issue 9
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.
City Watch
Bloomington, MN - “Bloomington police, fire departments may deploy drone technology” [Sun Current]
Los Angeles, CA, U.S. - “LAPD panel approves new oversight of facial recognition, rejects calls to end program” [LA Times, see also Jurist and Government Technology]
Peachtree Corners, GA (Update)- “Smart City Peachtree Corners Deploys Cawamo's Industry-First AI Camera Tech For COVID-19 Safety and Security” [CISION PR Wire]
Portsmouth, UK - “Southern Co-op is using live facial recognition cameras in 18 Portsmouth stores” [Portsmouth News] Should they outlaw this as NYC has? (Read more on that in Issue 6.)
Saudi Arabia - “The Line is part of Bin Salman's NEOM, that artificial city in the middle of the desert that was to have robot dinosaurs and an artificial moon that at this point only exists on 2,300 pages dreamed up by white label consulting firms on Bin Salman's dime.” [VICE]
Shenzhen, China - “Beginning in 2020, Shenzhen, in partnership with Chinese tech behemoth Tencent and NBBJ Architects, embarked on the design of a coastal, sustainable, state-of-the-art neighborhood called Net City to serve as the exclamation point capping Shenzhen’s status as China’s Silicon Valley.” [Fair Observer]
United Kingdom - “Six companies will be taking part in the UK Smart City Innovation Testbed programme, hosted at Salford’s MediaCityUK, to discover how cities can use technology to adapt to a post-Covid world.” [Smart Cities World]
Various Global Cities - “New research indicates governments already have methods and tools [for backdoor access that], for better or worse, let them access locked smartphones thanks to weaknesses in the security schemes of Android and iOS.” [Ars Technica]
Various U.S. Cities - “The National League of Cities is pleased to announce the formation of an Unmanned Air Mobility Integration Advisory Forum of cities and towns to advise the federal government on efforts to integrate unmanned aerial vehicles – or drones – into the United States airspace.” [National League of Cities via Axios Cities newsletter]
Washington, DC, U.S. (Update) - Once again this week there were many articles on technologies being used to identify Capitol attackers. By the time of last week’s issue, the FBI had not admitted to using facial recognition technology in their investigation but has since done so. EFF and Slate’s Future Tense call for this event to not be used to promote the use of this technology, while MA’s Governor Baker uses this event to promote the use of this technology and validate his choice to not approve of limitations to the use of facial recognition technology in MA’s recent criminal justice reform legislation. (See Issues 3, 4, 5, 6)
Market Watch
Consumer tech - “Ultimately, this year’s CES felt out of step with current events.” [WIRED]
Drones - “UPS, Verizon partner on 5G drone delivery in Florida” [Smart Cities Dive]
Facial recognition technology -
“China's Huawei backtracks after filing for patent to identify Uyghurs. Chinese technology firm Huawei has backtracked on a patent application it filed for a facial recognition system meant to identify Uyghurs in China.” [Business Standard, see also India Blooms]
“Chinese facial recognition unicorn Megvii prepares China IPO” [TechCrunch]
And more merging for fraud detection with fintech: “VisionLabs and Smart Engines, Innovatrics announce biometric onboarding customer wins” [Biometric Update]
Internet of Things - “How Amazon Sidewalk Works—and Why You May Want to Turn It Off. The premise is convenient. But the e-commerce giant’s record on privacy isn’t exactly inspiring.” [WIRED]
Location Data -
“The main difference lies not in data sharing with Facebook, but in their clarification that IP and phone number information is used to estimate general location even if precise location sharing (using GPS, etc.) is disabled,” Pranesh Prakash, Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and an independent tech policy researcher, explained” [The Indian Express see also The Verge on the delay of this privacy policy update]
“Google completes purchase of Fitbit. The $2.1 billion acquisition was announced in November 2019” [The Verge]
“Leaked Location Data Shows Another Muslim Prayer App Tracking Users. Salaat First has more than ten million downloads and sold location data to Predicio, which is linked to a U.S. contractor which works with ICE.” [VICE]
“An Absurdly Basic Bug Let Anyone Grab All of Parler's Data.” [WIRED, see also The Verge]
Mobility data
“Uber is launching Uber Transit, which allows customers to plan multimodal trips including trains, buses, walking, and Uber rides in Mexico City and London. They are the third and fourth city to get Uber Transit, after Sydney and Chicago.” [The Verge]
“Gett, a London and Israel-based ride-hailing company, raised $115 million. Pelham Capital Investments led the round.” [Fortune Term Sheet]
Ring
Smart cities
“South Korea's Hancom Group CES 2021 Showcases Game Changing Productivity and Collaboration Solutions, Artificial Intelligence and Robots, Smart City, and Blockchain Security” [CISION PR Newswire]
Policy Watch
Baltimore, MD, U.S. - “The new council also will consider an issue on which legislation stalled in committee last year: barring the city from using facial recognition technology. ” [Baltimore Sun]
France - “France Bans Police Camera Drones Used to Enforce Lockdown” [Bloomberg]
New York, U.S. - “New York proposes a new Biometric Privacy Act” [Lexology, see also Crain’s New York]
Patterson, NJ, U.S. (Update) - “As the facial recognition industry faces hostile regulations, claims of racial bias and growing public mistrust, more suits over the fledgling technology are expected.” [Law.com]
Springfield, MA, U.S. - “Local officials are speaking out after Governor Charlie Baker said he supported the use of facial recognition software to arrest rioters after the attack on Capitol Hill...Ramos told 22News he does not condone the attack on Capitol Hill and those who broke the law should be prosecuted. But he said he is concerned that there are no regulations in place to prevent the misuse of facial recognition technology.” [22News]
U.S. Federal -
DHS - “EPIC Urges DHS to Suspend New Counterintelligence Records System” [EPIC]
DOD - “Trump administration adds Xiaomi to military blacklist” [TechCrunch]
DOJ - “Google announced that it "completed its acquisition of Fitbit" in a $2.1 billion, even though the Department of Justice has not yet approved the merger. DOJ said that its investigation into the deal remains ongoing and "[a]lthough the division has not reached a final decision about whether to pursue an enforcement action, the division continues to investigate whether Google's acquisition of Fitbit may harm competition and consumers in the United States." This announcement comes after Google gained EU antitrust approval for its Fitbit bid last month after agreeing to limits on how it will use consumers' data, including pledging to not use Fitbit data for advertising purposes in Europe.” [EPIC, see also Ars Technica]
DOT - “Congress Considering Money to Unbuild Freeways and Rebuild Communities...The city of Dallas is already getting out in front of the curve on this matter: armed with $4 million in federal funding, it plans to replace a freeway through a low-income minority neighborhood with a boulevard that will serve as a testbed for smart-transit technology.” [Next City]
FAA - “The FAA just greenlit this drone to fly autonomously without a human nearby” [The Verge]
FCC - “Dozens of organizations have asked the incoming Biden FCC to directly confront digital redlining after the FCC reverses the Trump era deregulation of broadband providers and restore their common carriage obligations.” [EFF]
FTC (Update) - “Photo App Settles With FTC Over Data Used for Face Recognition” [Bloomberg Law, see also EPIC and JDSupra]
Various EU Cities (Update) - “Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the ‘Right to Repair’” [NextCity]
Various Global Cities - “European Digital Rights (EDRi), along with 61 civil society groups including EPIC, sent a letter today calling for the EU to introduce certain red lines in their upcoming European Commission proposal on Artificial Intelligence. The letter calls on the EU to prohibit the use of biometric mass surveillance, AI at the border, use of AI with social scoring, and use of predictive policing and other AI criminal risk assessment tools” [EPIC]
Various U.S. Cities (Update) - “The Seventh Circuit held Thursday that a lower court correctly sent back to state court a biometric privacy lawsuit against facial recognition technology company Clearview AI, saying the residents who sued were free to avoid federal court by narrowing their claims.” [Law 360]
Virginia, U.S. - “A state lawmaker has introduced legislation that would require local civilian leaders to give police departments approval before they could use facial recognition technology.” [Pilot Online]
Watching the Watchers Watch
New York City, NY, U.S. - On January 19th (tomorrow), New York City Council’s Committee on Technology is hearing testimony on “Smart City - Oversight”. Note while not participating LIVE, Rebecca has sent in testimony; more on that to come. [h/t @philipashlock]
Bonus Section...Public Space (Online) to Watch
💻 New Public Festival: “What social networks can learn from public spaces. Or: 14 ways to rebuild your hell site” [The Verge]
(Update: The 2019-2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy series on the politics and governance of smart city technology featured last week is still going.)