Ireland’s Department of Social Protection (DSP) confirmed reports that it uses biometric processing and facial recognition technologies as a part of its public services card (PSC) program. As The Irish Times reports, the department published a revised version of its privacy statement on Monday night in which it clarified that the biometric processing of photographs…
Malaysia’s National Registration Department (JPN) is looking to implement a biometric registration system for all official identifying documents in an attempt to boost national security. According to Rusline Jusoh, director-general of national registration, the documents involved in the effort will include citizenship, marriage, birth and adoption certificates, none of which currently have any biometric identification…
A committee of the Virginia House of Delegates voted last week to send several privacy-related bills to a legislative commission for study, including the Virginia Privacy Act (VPA). The VPA is proposed as a less onerous version of the recently passed California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which came into effect in the state of California…
Clearview AI is continuing to experience blowback over its controversial facial recognition scheme. Facebook has told Clearview to stop mining the social media platform for the photos in its database, adding its name to the growing list of tech giants that have taken issue with Clearview’s practices. Clearview first came under fire in the wake…
The city of Moscow is already facing its first major legal challenge after launching a city-wide surveillance network on January 1. The network is managed by Moscow’s Department of Technology (DIT), which has spent 3.3 billion roubles (approximately $53.3 million) installing cameras and licensing facial recognition software to bring the network online. The legal challenge…
Major New York Law Firm Kramer Levin has written a post on its website offering companies some information and guidance on the recently passed California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The act, which went into effect on January 1, 2020, places restrictions on how business can use, retain and disclose the personal information of California consumers…
Privacy advocates are in an uproar in the wake of a bombshell report from the New York Times. The report details the activities of a company called Clearview AI, an American startup that has quietly provided facial recognition services to more than 600 law enforcement agencies. Unlike other facial recognition tools – which often limit…
Apple is once again at the centre of a privacy debate over requests for the tech giant to unlock the iPhones of the shooter in a recent tragedy at a naval air base in Pensacola, Florida. The situation Apple finds itself in is similar to the one in the aftermath of the 2015 San Berbardino…
After a long period of administrative dialogue, New York state now has its first publicly known school deployment of facial recognition technology. The AEGIS security system went live in Lockport Central School District on January 2nd. When school district officials’ plans to implement the system were revealed in the summer of 2018, they immediately drew…
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched an investigation into the use of facial recognition surveillance technology in the Granary Square development. Located near King’s Cross station in central London, the development consists of 50 separate buildings spread across 67 acres of land in the middle of the city. The British privacy watchdog opened…
A lawsuit against Google based on the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA, has been dismissed by a district court judge – but that doesn’t mean the case is closed for good. The case was launched in 2016 by a woman who unwittingly had her imaged captured by a Google Photos user in 11…
Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) has a potentially powerful new defender in the state’s newly-elected Attorney General, Kwame Raoul. The law, passed a decade ago, is aimed at protecting citizens’ privacy rights with respect to their biometric data, with a central component being a requirement that any companies collecting such data obtain clear consent.…
Prompted by an outcry from the New York Civil Liberties Union, officials with New York State Department of Education and the Lockport City School District are trying to hammer out the protocols for a new school security system based on facial and object recognition. The system, called “Aegis”, is being provided by Canadian firm SN…
“…in responding the ACLU’s latest volley, a spokesperson emphasized that Rekognition is used to aid human review, and not to definitively link one facial image to another” The ACLU has turned Amazon’s facial recognition technology against the company itself in a damning new demonstration highlighting the technology’s flaws. The civil rights organization says that it…
With government use of biometric technology becoming an increasingly sensitive issue in the public domain, an Irish government agency is waging a semantic battle over its use of facial recognition. The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection has been using face matching technology for years now in a bid to thwart fraud. The technology…
Like pretty much any other groundbreaking technology, biometrics has long carried the promise of great social benefit and the risk of potential abuse. It has always been exciting and controversial. But those qualities have only intensified as biometric technologies have advanced in their sophistication. Today, systems are emerging that can identify people through public security…
As controversy over the public use of facial recognition continues, Microsoft is following Google’s lead in laying out its approach to the ethics of the technology in a new blog post by the company’s President, Brad Smith. It’s a far less concise and straightforward accounting than the one laid out by Google CEO Sundar Prichai,…
“Essentially, the court will decide whether the law should concern the unauthorized collection of biometric data alone, or whether alleged victims of malfeasance should have to prove that they have actually been somehow injured or wronged through the collection of such data.” The Illinois Supreme Court is poised to make a major ruling on how…
Israel-based AnyVision says it’s bringing biometric entry to a sports stadium in London this summer, but it’s not saying which one. As the Evening Standard reports, the revelation came at this week’s Ifsec International Security Show in Newham, where AnyVision’s founder, Eylon Etshtein, explained that the stadium deployment will replace tickets with face biometrics, scanning individuals…