Facial Recognition on Ring Cameras May Violate Privacy Laws, Says EFF
Amazon’s announcement that it will add facial recognition technology (FRT) to its Ring cameras poses privacy risks and may violate laws, said Mario Trujillo, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), during an audio companion to the group’s weekly newsletter Wednesday.
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The Ring is a home surveillance camera, and the added FRT is designed to help identify those who appear on someone’s doorstep, Trujillo said. To do that, “Amazon and Ring will have to scan the faces of every person who steps in front of the camera,” including “people who don't consent.”
The goal is for Ring owners to be able to “go into their app” and “tag people” who often show up at their door. But the information of “even the people that a Ring homeowner doesn't tag … can be stored in Amazon's databases for up to six months."
Trujillo said there are three main risks with FRT: the risk of surveillance, the risk of discrimination and the risk of a data breach. In the Ring case, mass surveillance is his top concern, as Amazon “is a powerful company” and its cameras “are in a lot of homes.” So, “in a densely populated city … [the cameras have] the potential to be able to sort of track a person's movements.”
In addition, Ring’s partnership with the police raises concerns about the misuse of data, whether from within the company, law enforcement or hackers, he said.
Amazon's announcement “poses huge legal risks for the company,” as there are regulations in some states and regions protecting biometric information, added Trujillo. Amazon has said FRT won't be available to residents of Illinois because of the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act.
Unlike BIPA, which has a private right of action, many other states' laws can only be enforced by an attorney general, which “takes some of the agency away from individual people whose faces are being scanned," he said.
Other privacy lawyers and consumer advocates have compared facial-regulation regulation to the Wild West (see 2510210009). Some privacy advocates have grown increasingly concerned as the technology's usage has increased (see 2510100041).