Yesterday the First Circuit became the first federal court of appeals to hear oral argument on the constitutionality of the warrantless placement of a secret video camera on top of a utility pole after the ACLU’s 2018 victory in the Supreme Court...
Face surveillance is dangerous when it works, and when it doesn’t. A new report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-partisan federal government research agency based at the US Department of Commerce, adds further data to a growing...
Face surveillance systems are currently being used by the government in Massachusetts, despite the absence of privacy protections or even legislative authorization. Communities across the state are rallying and organizing to push back, to protect privacy, racial justice, and civil rights in...
Last night Somerville became the third city in Massachusetts to enact a law requiring city council oversight and control of all municipal government surveillance, following Cambridge and Lawrence. The ordinance was approved at the City Council by unanimous vote. City Councilor Ben...
Documents obtained by the ACLU of Massachusetts, published today for the first time, show that surveillance oversight ordinances are effective means of stopping secret agreements between companies like Amazon’s Ring and local police. For years, the ACLU and other digital rights advocates...
A new study has found major flaws in a live facial recognition trial by police in the United Kingdom. Researchers said the trials violated human rights, muddled public consent, and were inaccurate in 81 percent of cases. The Met police began with...
On Tuesday, July 30 Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern and Councilors Craig Kelley and Sumbul Siddiqui will introduce a measure to ban municipal government use of face surveillance technology. If the measure passes, Cambridge would become the second city in Massachusetts, after Somerville,...
Since 2006, the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles has used face surveillance technology to try to weed out fraudulent license applicants. From almost day one, the RMV has allowed law enforcement agencies across Massachusetts and the United States to use its drivers...
In an important new privacy ruling, a federal judge in Massachusetts last week suppressed a “precise video log” of the comings and goings at a private home, which law enforcement generated by training a hidden pole camera on the home’s driveway for...
In two reports published this week, Georgetown University Law School’s Center on Privacy and Technology joins the ACLU of Massachusetts in calling for a moratorium on the government’s use of face surveillance technology, citing alarming new findings about law enforcement’s use of...