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he considered inappropriate.
HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan said
facial recognition technology in public housing was a local issue and that he wouldn’t comment beyond Carson’s testimony at the hearing.
In July, Tlaib introduced a bill that would ban facial recognition software from public housing, along with a bill that would ban federal purchases of the technology. A third bill, introduced in the House by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), would prohibit federal agencies from using facial recognition technology without a court order.
In July, Michigan lawmakers intro- duced two bills. One would place a five- year moratorium on facial recognition technology while another would ban it outright.
Vermont and Washington state law- makers introduced bills this year to curb police use of the technology. California lawmakers introduced a bill to require businesses using facial recognition soft- ware to alert their customers.
In New York, a package of bills focus- es on the use of facial recognition in housing. One bill would ban biometric and facial recognition software from being used in federally funded public housing. Another bill would bar land- lords from installing the technology on “any residential premises.”
Project Green Light
Three years ago, Detroit launched Project Green Light Detroit, an $8 million surveillance system that uses live cameras in schools, gas stations, churches, medical centers and liquor stores to deter crime and improve police response times.
The city installed Project Green Light cameras in more than 500 locations with little fanfare. In May, though, a George- town University study found that the city used facial recognition software, in conjunction with Project Green Light cameras, to make arrests.
According to the study: “No longer is video surveillance limited to recording what happens; it may now identify who is where, doing what, at any point in time.”
The study found that live cameras
were tracking the movements of ten- ants in apartment buildings and even patients coming and going from a medi- cal center, which Detroit Police Chief James Craig denied in an interview with Stateline. Craig said his depart- ment does not use facial recognition software to track people.
The city started using the cameras in areas with high crime rates, such as gas stations and outside liquor stores. But earlier this year, public housing officials installed Project Green Light cameras in a senior citizens’ community, said Sandra Henriquez, executive director of the Detroit Housing Commission. She said the cameras themselves are not equipped with facial recognition software.
“People seem to conflate the issue,” she said. “I have video surveillance equipment. I do not have facial recog- nition software in any of our properties. I want to make that crystal clear.”
Asked whether she had concerns about the technology, Henriquez said, “I would not say there are concerns. It is a technology, as a landlord, I do not need. I understand, in certain circum- stances and applications, there might be a need. But not what happens on my property at this point.”
Henriquez said she has no intention of installing facial recognition software in any of the public housing units and has no plans to install Project Green Light in other city housing complexes.
The cameras were installed at the behest of tenants, said Craig, the police chief. He said the city has used facial recognition 500 times in the past year to identify suspects. A positive identi- fication was made in about a third of the cases.
“The thing that’s being lost in the conversations, whether it’s cameras or facial recognition, no one talks about the victims,” Craig said. “It’s almost as though the victims don’t count.”
The police take a snapshot from Proj- ect Green Light cameras and enter it into the software, which generates pho- tos gleaned from mug books, ranks the photos and identifies likely matches.
Craig said after the software iden-
tifies a possible match, two analysts trained in biometrics by the FBI study the photograph. If they think they’ve made a positive match, they then run it by a supervisor, who turns the pho- tograph over to prosecutors.
A positive match from facial rec- ognition software is not sufficient to charge a suspect with a crime, Craig said.
“Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that using facial recogni- tion would have garnered such a vitri- olic response,” he said.
Unlocking the door
Last fall, Nelson Management Group informed tenants of Atlantic Plaza — the rent-stabilized, middle-income complex in Brooklyn where Fabian Rogers lives — that it planned to replace key fobs with facial recognition software.
The system would be next to the doors, according to Colleen Dunlap, CEO of StoneLock, which manufac- tures the technology. Tenants could be scanned in through an automatic door without touching anything.
But tenants would not be tracked using the StoneLock system, Dunlap said in an emailed statement. “We work hard to protect user privacy.”
Rogers and other tenants objected because surveillance cameras were already on the property, along with security guards and a doorman. They filed a legal action with the state’s Homes and Community Renewal agency, which oversees rent-stabilized housing.
“The sole goal of implementing this technology is to advance that priority and support the safety and security of residents,” said Chris Santarelli, a spokesman for the Nelson Management Group, in an emailed statement.
Rogers, who’s lived in the building for over a decade, remains unconvinced.
“I have no control over where this information goes,” he said. “So we’re going to keep fighting.” n
This article was first published by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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