Chair of the Federal Election Commission Ellen L. Weintraub published an opinion piece in Washington Post in response to twitter’s ban of political ads. Instead of a total ban, the Commissioner argues for a strategy that would focus on preventing microtargeting.
PRG member Albert Cahn published two new op-eds. In an NBC News piece, Dr. Cahn examines privacy impact of electronic monitoring — a class of body-worn devices that are increasingly used to replace prison confinement as well as accompany bail and probation releases. Dr. Cahn’s recent Daily News article discusses a recent move by NYPD to give commissioner discretion on releasing body camera footage to the public.
IBM has put out a proposal for federal regulation of Facial Recognition technology, echoing similar calls from Microsoft, Amazon, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The document introduces a differentiation between Detection, Authentication, and Matching as types of Facial Recognition tasks. The proposal advocates against blanket bans on the technology, citing possible benefits.
Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren introduced a new Online Privacy Act that would establish an agency to enforce user privacy laws.
The New York Times addresses legal implication ensuing from a sweeping warrant granted to a police officer for searching the full GEDmatch database with over a million users.
An agency hired by Google reportedly sent its contractors to target the homeless people in Atlanta as part of an effort to collect more racially diverse facial scans.
(Compiled by Student Fellow Margarita Boyarskaya)