We all sign privacy agreements. We all speed scroll through terms and conditions to download iOS 14. We all know the government stores our data, including our physical data. There are many examples of it, especially facial recognition. Recently, that government camera has been pointed at activists/activism, especially when it comes to protesting or “rioting” against police brutality. For example, during the recent Minneapolis protests against the murder of George Floyd, VICE reported that surveillance drones were flying over the city, collecting data to be used for “situational awareness”. There was a similar occurrences in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray protests. The government and its agents have made quick use of the physical data they gather, using everything from our location to our social media to now literal captures of our faces and bodies.
We’ve all seen protest advice where the tips range from “leave your phone at home” (to avoid location tracking) to “don’t share unblurred images of protesters” (where facial recognition can be weaponized against activists). Some states are starting to take action, such as Portland who recently passed a ban on the use of facial recognition software from the “city government [and] private companies”. The main reason is that the algorithms running the surveillance have been proven to have a bias with one article describing algorithms as “a white security guard who thinks Black people look alike”. The algorithms for these software “learn” by being inundated with pictures of human faces, but, most if not all of the algorithms are shown “predominantly white men”, leading to soaring rates of misidentification against women and people of color. When compared against white people, some algorithms were “up to 100 times” more likely to confuse two people of color.
Exercising a “fundamental right” given to me as a “citizen” such as protest should not land me in a police or corporate database to be later used by the state. State surveillance is often promoted as being used to “prevent crime” and many assume that the more faces shown to these algorithms, the better it will get. However, these faces are provided via crime rates in cities and districts, which are produced by already biased policing, therefore rendering the data collected to also be biased. There have been many stories about the police coming to arrest activists days after protests, using everything from Instagram to Etsy as one crackdown was reported from Philadelphia. The very fact that our bodies are being used as evidence for “future crimes” or used under the guise of “preventing crime” sets a dangerous precedent for what the government controls. This technology is absolutely more likely to be abused against people that are already victims of the state.
(PS: The title was something a girl said to me at a protest downtown when we noticed cops taking photos of the crowd)
Unruly Bodies 
I am so happy I chose to read this because of how much information I just learned. I’ve been following protests, riots, blm, chnge, and so much more trying to follow everything that’s been happening since March and somehow I missed how big facial recognition has been. I love that your post includes justice for black lives, racism, masks during the pandemic, white privilege, and more all in one. Great, writing, great story, and great title! There is so much wrong with the idea that peaceful protesting for equal rights is placing people in jail and putting you in “The System.” It unfortunately speaks to how racist the US is and how systematic racism needs to be stopped.
Thank you! I learned about it from a TV show where one of the suspects was ID’d via facial recognition and he was a black man. Later in the episode, we find out he was the wrong man and it’s then revealed that the “algorithm” in the show’s facial recognition had a high percentage of being wrong when compared against black faces and other people of color. Made me want to read into it more!
As someone who knows virtually nothing about technology, data, surveillance, etc., this was interesting to read. I was also at a Baltimore protest over the summer and we noticed the flying drones. It was such a surreal feeling. Being in the middle of a protest plus the global pandemic and everyone wearing masks plus governments drones flying above us was a little too dystopian for comfort. I also saw an article on Twitter the other day about some police departments new advance technology electric body shields and it makes me think about how the more technologically advanced we become, the more those resources go into further oppressing marginalized people. Instead of investing money into communities, the government would rather spend it militarizing the police and making them look tough. Giving video surveillance technology to the police, just to make easier to terrorize Black communities is devastating. To relate this comment to the course, your post also makes it painfully obvious how much the government owns it citizens’ bodies. The police has the power to capture photo and video of us whenever it pleases, the power to handcuff us, the power to literally beat and kill our bodies. Then the media has the power to just show everything happening to your body to the public. I’m also catching myself thinking “What is the solution? Should the police just go back to paper recording? Do we need to hire Black software developers?” And then I remind myself that “police” and “solution” do not go together.
“Police and solution do not go together.” It’s amazing how much we all have to remember this. Where will our solutions come from? Great comment here, frenchfry.
Yeah, it’s definitely terrifying when you think hard about how much technology is tracking our lives. I have a Fitbit and I choose to have one but it’s scary to think that there’s something tracking and keeping a record of like my heartbeat or how far I walked. I love the benefits I get from the device but at the same time, what am I giving up? What am I making (semi-)public?
This is really important, and so so scary to me. The only thing about this that could scare me more is that someone would see the criticism “facial recognition software trained on majority white features struggles to differentiate the features of POC, which is dangerous and bad” and take that to mean “we can solve this by training the software on a more diverse sample” instead of taking it as a glaring condemnation of state surveillance as a whole. Increasing accuracy of recognition should not be the goal, dismantling oppressive systems and eliminating state sanctioned invasion of privacy should.
I also really appreciate your commentary on the idea of “preventing” hypothetical future crime. What a dystopian idea, its almost like we’ve seen this before somewhere…
This is late but YES!!!! “FIXING IT” DOESN’T MEAN ADDING MORE “DIVERSITY” TO THE SYSTEMS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you