VICTORY: Meta Strips Facial Recognition Code From Smart Glasses App After Public Outcry
Just days after a damning WIRED report exposed that Meta had quietly embedded facial recognition technology (FRT) code into millions of phones, the tech giant has quietly acquiesced in demands to reverse course.Last week, researchers identified code in Meta AI, a companion app for its line of smart...
Move Fast, Surveil Things
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/move-fast-surveil-things
Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses, according to new reporting by Wired. EFF’s Threat Lab was able to confirm that the facial recognition code is present through static analysis of the application. This dangerous new Meta functionality...
Axon Tests Face Recognition on Body-Worn Cameras
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/axon-tests-face-recognition-body-worn-cameras
Axon Enterprise Inc. is working with a Canadian police department to test the addition of face recognition technology (FRT) to its body-worn cameras (BWCs). This is an alarming development in government surveillance that should put communities everywhere on alert. As many as 50 officers from the...
Rights Organizations Demand Halt to Mobile Fortify, ICE's Handheld Face Recognition Program
#Street-LevelSurveillance #FaceSurveillance
A coalition of privacy, civil liberties and civil rights organizations are demanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shut down the use of Mobile Fortify, release the agency's privacy analyses of the app, and clarify the agency's policy on face recognition.
EFF to NJ Supreme Court: Prosecutors Must Disclose Details Regarding FRT Used to Identify Defendant
#Street-LevelSurveillance #FaceSurveillance
This post was written by EFF legal intern Alexa Chavara.Black box technology has no place in the criminal legal system. That’s why we’ve once again filed an amicus brief arguing that the both the defendant and the public have a right to information regarding face recognition technology (FRT) that...
Face Scans to Estimate Our Age: Creepy AF and Harmful
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/face-scans-estimate-our-age-creepy-af-and-harmful
Government must stop restricting website access with laws requiring age verification.Some advocates of these censorship schemes argue we can nerd our way out of the many harms they cause to speech, equity, privacy, and infosec. Their silver bullet? “Age estimation” technology that scans our faces,...
Civil Rights Commission Pans Face Recognition Technology
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/civil-rights-commission-pans-face-recognition-technology
#ArtificialIntelligence&MachineLearning #Street-LevelSurveillance #SurveillanceTechnologies #FaceSurveillance #Biometrics
In its recent report, Civil Rights Implications of Face Recognition Technology (FRT), the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights identified serious problems with the federal government’s use of face recognition technology, and in doing so recognized EFF’s expertise on this issue. The Commission focused...
Germany Rushes to Expand Biometric Surveillance
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/germany-rushes-expand-biometric-surveillance
#SurveillanceandHumanRights #DigitalServicesAct #FaceSurveillance #Security #Privacy
Germany is a leader in privacy and data protection, with many Germans being particularly sensitive to the processing of their personal data – owing to the country’s totalitarian history and the role of surveillance in both Nazi Germany and East Germany.So, it is disappointing that the German...
Weak "Guardrails" on Police Face Recognition Use Make Things Worse
Police use of face recognition technology (FRT) poses a particularly massive risk to our civil liberties, particularly for Black men and women and other marginalized communities. That's why EFF supports a ban on government FRT use. Half-measures aren't up to the task.However, even as half-measures...
Detroit Takes Important Step in Curbing the Harms of Face Recognition Technology
#DigitalRightsandtheBlack-ledMovementAgainstPoliceViolence #Street-LevelSurveillance #FaceSurveillance
In a first-of-its-kind agreement, the Detroit Police Department recently agreed to adopt strict limits on its officers’ use of face recognition technology as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a victim of this faulty technology. Robert Williams, a Black resident of a Detroit suburb, filed...
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