Local governments are weakening facial recognition bans
If you follow news about Clearview AI, you probably know that the controversial facial recognition firm was dealt a substantial blow last week after it settled a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union under Illinois’ Biometric Identification Privacy Act (BIPA), which regulates how private companies use biometrics.
There were some big wins for privacy advocates. According to the settlement, Clearview can’t sell its tech in Illinois for five years, and people in the state will be able to opt out of their facial scans appearing in Clearview’s database search results. As a result of the settlement, Clearview is prohibited from selling access to its facial recognition database to most private companies.
Is this a landslide victory for privacy? Regular readers of this newsletter may know I am fascinated with BIPA and the unique role the Illinois law plays in giving people in the U.S. a pathway to push back against companies using their biometrics. But the Clearview settlement also showed some of the limitations of BIPA, at a time when other privacy regulations are under attack. This has not gone unnoticed.
“One of the most important protections that we would hope for is not in that settlement, which is Clearview having to get opt-in consent from an Illinois person before taking their face print,” said Adam Schwartz, a senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights group who filed an amicus brief supporting the ACLU’s case.