Face recognition and other forms of biometric identification technologies are a threat to core constitutional rights and have a disturbing record of racial bias and inaccuracy that endangers people of color and other marginalized groups. In keeping with President Biden’s commitment to racial equity and civil liberties for all, he must take immediate action to halt the use and funding of these dangerous technologies by the federal government.

Today, we are calling on Biden to impose a federal moratorium on face recognition technology and prevent state and local governments from using federal funds to purchase it. More than 35 organizations and individuals — including Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Amnesty International, among others — join us in a coalition letter urging swift executive action.

Study after study has revealed the flaws of face recognition technology. In 2018, an MIT research team led by doctoral candidate Joy Buolamwini (who also cosigned our letter) found alarming racial and gender disparities in commercial face recognition systems, including Amazon’s Rekognition software. While the systems were relatively accurate when analyzing the faces of white men, they failed up to one in three times when classifying the faces of Black women. Subsequent studies confirmed these findings, including a study from the federal government itself.

These flaws pose a particular threat to people of color, women, transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and other marginalized groups who are more likely to be misidentified — and bear the consequences. Not even members of Congress are safe — when the ACLU ran a test on Rekognition, it falsely matched 28 members of Congress with a mug-shot database, with false matches disproportionately affecting lawmakers of color.

So what happens when a face recognition system falsely matches somebody to a photo in a database? We saw the result last year, when Detroit police arrested a Black man, Robert Williams, because a face recognition tool had returned a false match. While the police later acknowledged the mistake, the damage was already done. Williams had been arrested on his own front lawn, in front of his wife and two young daughters. He had to spend 30 hours in a jail cell, accused by an algorithm of a crime he didn’t commit. On the arrest, Williams said, “How does one explain to two young girls that the computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?”

%3Ciframe%20class%3D%22media-youtube-player%22%20width%3D%22580%22%20height%3D%22324%22%20title%3D%22What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube-nocookie.com%2Fembed%2F111zsenxTcw%3Fwmode%3Dopaque%26amp%3Bcontrols%3D1%26amp%3Bmodestbranding%3D1%26amp%3Brel%3D0%26amp%3Bshowinfo%3D0%26amp%3Bcolor%3Dwhite%26autoplay%3D1%26version%3D3%26playsinline%3D1%22%20name%3D%22What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%22%20frameborder%3D%220%22%20allowfullscreen%3D%22%22%20id%3D%22What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%22%20allow%3D%22autoplay%22%3EVideo%20of%20What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%3C%2Fiframe%3E

Privacy statement. This embed will serve content from youtube-nocookie.com.

We know of at least two more Black men who were misidentified and falsely arrested due to face recognition technology. However, the real number of victims is unknown because of an unacceptable lack of transparency from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, which have been using this technology for years without explicit authorization or guidance. But government use of face recognition technology goes far beyond law enforcement. We’re seeing it deployed in schools and public housing developments — where its flaws and biases threaten to disproportionately harm Black and Brown people in settings already wrought with racial discrimination and inequality.

Even if face recognition technology was perfectly accurate, it would still be a nightmare for civil liberties. Face recognition technology gives governments, companies, and individuals the power to spy on us wherever we go — tracking our faces at protests, political rallies, places of worship, family planning clinics, substance abuse treatment centers, and more. When combined with existing networks of surveillance cameras dotting our urban and suburban landscapes, face recognition algorithms could enable governments to track the public movements, habits, and associations of all people at all times without any justification or suspicion of wronging — merely with the push of a button.

Never before has the government possessed a surveillance tool as dangerous as face recognition technology. If the government can track us everywhere we go, we lose our freedom to speak our minds, freely criticize the government, pray to the god we want, and access health care in private. These are not hypothetical dangers: Face recognition technology is currently being used to conduct precisely this kind of dystopian monitoring in China.

Despite these glaring concerns, U.S. federal agencies have been using face recognition technology for nearly two decades — in secret and absent any regulation or oversight. The fight has gone on just as long. The ACLU and thousands of our supporters have been calling on Congress for years to stop law enforcement use of face recognition, and we have sued for information about its use by the FBI, DEA, ICE, and CBP. We’ve also taken on private companies for their role in facilitating this dangerous technology, including by suing Clearview AI for violating an Illinois biometric privacy law.

We have made progress over the years: In 2020, during the wave of protests against police brutality, we led a coalition of more than 80 civil rights groups calling on Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to stop selling face recognition technology to law enforcement. Those companies have now stopped or paused sales to law enforcement. Fifteen municipalities across the country have banned government use of face recognition technology, including Boston, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California and Jackson, Mississippi. The State of Vermont has done the same. And California has halted the use of facial recognition and biometric technology in connection with police body cameras.

We have a chance with the new administration to set a powerful new precedent on face recognition technology. President Biden must make his administration a major turning point, and make the U.S. a leader in the world, by placing a moratorium on government use of face recognition technology.

The Trump Department of Justice spent its final days putting thousands of people at greater risk of catching COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic. On Jan. 15, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo arguing the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) will be legally obligated to return thousands of people released on home confinement back to federal prisons while the pandemic still ravages correctional facilities. With the memo’s March return date growing closer — and public health officials indicating that we will not be out of the pandemic woods by then — the Biden administration must take swift action. Not only must the administration ensure that those who have been released can stay out of these deadly facilities, they must also expand the program by increasing the number of people released to home confinement, the use of clemency, and the commutation of sentences.

When Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, last March, it included a mandate to decrease federal incarceration to stop the spread of the virus. The Trump administration, however, dragged its feet in response, creating complex and changing guidelines for consideration for release, making entire groups of people ineligible for release due to their convictions and/or criminal history, regardless of their health status, and even arguing that some people would be safer in federal prisons.

However, with mounting pressure from Congress, federal public defenders, and advocacy organizations, more than 7,000 people have been sent to home confinement. While this is only a small portion of people in federal prisons, any decrease in prison population is vital given the increased dangers of incarceration during a pandemic.

In spite of these risks, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel’s Jan. 15 memo argued that home confinement should end for those 7,000 people when the CARES Act runs out in March. The memo claimed that these releases can occur “only during the Act’s covered emergency period,” and the BOP’s authority “does not provide an alternative basis for authorizing continued home confinement.” This is wrong as a matter of both law and morality. In terms of law, home confinement is a standard practice in federal prisons that predates the COVID-19 pandemic. The BOP had this authority long before the CARES Act, most recently updating its standards in 2019. People are only pulled back into facilities from home confinement if they have violated the rules of the program. There is nothing in the CARES Act that changes this procedure, and the act doesn’t provide its own grounds for recall from home confinement. In terms of morality, decreasing the BOP’s population will save lives, both of those inside of federal prisons and those outside of them.

People in prisons, jails, and detention centers have been among those hit hardest by the pandemic. As of December, one in every five people in state and federal prisons in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus. This rate is more than four times as high as in the general population, and the limited data available for the BOP suggests the rate is even worse for people in those facilities. These shocking rates are likely an understatement of the true scope. ACLU lawsuits against local jails, state and federal prisons, and federal detention facilities have repeatedly demanded more testing, along with increased releases and improved health care. At least 2,305 incarcerated people and 145 corrections staff have already died from COVID-19, a horrific and unacceptable death toll.

Outbreaks in these facilities also endanger other members of the communities they are located in, as staff carry the virus with them in and out of work. Studies in Chicago and Milwaukee have empirically shown what we already know: Every member of our communities must be protected to ensure the end of this pandemic. Releasing people from these prisons and jails is a vital tool to fight COVID-19. It not only puts those released in a safer situation, it also allows people who are still inside to more easily socially distance, reducing the risk for everyone at the facility and in the surrounding area.

The Biden administration must take swift action not only to make sure the people who are out on home confinement can stay out, but also to ensure more people can be released from federal facilities. Committing to no longer use private prisons was a great first step toward changing the federal prison system, but no prison, jail, or detention center is safe during a pandemic.

We know fighting COVID-19 is a top priority for the Biden administration, and stopping the virus in the places it’s spreading most rapidly and dangerously is a critical public health approach. The Biden administration, therefore, shouldn’t just ensure the reversal of the Trump administration’s vindictive policies by rescinding the policies in Trump’s memo — it must use its power to release more people to home confinement, and use compassionate release and clemency to save lives. It makes sense for the thousands of people in danger in those facilities and for finally ending this pandemic.