On September 11, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its intention to significantly expand both the number of people required to submit biometrics during routine immigration applications and the types of biometrics that individuals must surrender. This new rule will apply to immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, and to people of all ages, including, for the first time, children under the age of 14. It would nearly double the number of people from whom DHS would collect biometrics each year, to more than six million. The biometrics DHS plans to collect include palm prints, voice prints, iris scans, facial imaging, and even DNA—which are far more invasive than DHS’s current biometric collection of fingerprints, photographs, and signatures.
There are a few very large companies which have an outsized influence on our online lives. Having large companies with control over so much of our data is not working for users, not working for privacy or freedom of expression, and it’s blocking the normal flow of competition. Above all, these giants need to be pushed to make it easy for users to leave, or to use other tools to interact with their data without leaving entirely.
The “Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act of 2021” (or ACCESS Act) would do that. Tell your representatives to pass the ACCESS Act.
Government use of face surveillance technology chills free speech, threatens residents’ privacy, and amplifies historical bias in our criminal system.
From San Francisco, California to Somerville, Massachusetts, communities are coming together to demand an about-face on the proliferation of government use of this especially pernicious form of surveillance and biometric data collection.
Join us in ending government use of face surveillance in our communities.
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