Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill on Thursday that would ban federal agencies from using facial recognition technology for surveillance.
The proposed bill—introduced by Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)—comes amid a heated debate over policing and racial justice. The killing of black Minneapolis resident George Floyd by a white police officer in May kick-started nationwide protests and reignited concerns about law enforcement using facial recognition and related A.I. technologies, which can be prone to bias or misuse by departments with a history of racial discrimination.
