Democrats introduce bill banning federal government use of facial recognition tech

A group of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation that would ban the federal government from using facial recognition technology.

The legislation was rolled out following weeks of criticism after the technology was used during protests over the death of George Floyd.

The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act would prohibit the use of facial recognition technologies by all federal groups, a ban that could only be lifted by an act of Congress. This ban would extend to other biometric surveillance systems, including voice recognition tools and any other technology that used physical characteristics to identify an individual.

The bill would also withhold federal funding from state and local governmental groups, including law enforcement, that failed to ban the use of facial recognition technologies. Any information collected through the use of facial recognition or biometric technologies that violated the proposed bill would not be admissible in court.

The proposed legislation was rolled out after weeks of protest over the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police, during which concerns over law enforcement use of facial recognition were raised.

Advocates against the use of facial recognition are concerned that the technologies pose greater risks to non-white individuals.

The backlash against facial recognition systems forced groups including Amazon, IBM and Microsoft to roll back facial recognition work with law enforcement in recent weeks, and the Boston City Council on Wednesday unanimously voted to ban government groups from using these technologies in the city.

The bill was introduced by Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) in the Senate, and by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) in the House.