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ACLU warns commissioners about facial-recognition bias and urges biometric privacy law
Summary
The ACLU of Massachusetts urged the commission to consider demographic bias and privacy gaps in facial-recognition technologies and recommended several pending state bills to protect biometric data before any policy relying on biometrics is advanced.
Cade Crockford, director of technology and the Liberty program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the commission that commercially available facial-recognition systems show significant variability in accuracy and documented bias across demographic groups, and that Massachusetts law lacks comprehensive biometric privacy protections.
Crockford cited a 2019 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) study, saying the research found wide differences in algorithm performance and higher false-match rates for some demographic groups: “Most algorithms gave significantly higher, false match rates for women than for men. The…
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