The information used to support this blog is cited at the end.
Coded Bias is a Netflix Documentary about the use of facial recognition in everyday society. It goes into the ethics of using facial recognition on the world’s population, when the identity of coders creating the facial recognition algorithms are predominantly white and male. Coded Bias talks about how facial recognition surveillance is currently used in China (CCTV) and the UK, but that led to the question – what’s actually happening in the United States?
It’s hard to categorize surveillance practices implemented in the United States country-wide, because of federalism and the autonomy of the states. So, I picked Washington State (West Coast, kind of far removed from the rest of the country) to take a guess at what the most liberal and lenient surveillance practices might be.
Seattle is the most well-known city…think Space Needle, Pike’s Place Market, Grey’s Anatomy. So, Seattle. What’s actually going on? Here are the basics.
- On November 14th, 2018 Seattle released its Survelliance Ordinance 125679 (Seattle Municipal Code Chapter 14.18)
- The point of this release was to create more transparency about the surveillance techniques the City of Seattle puts in practie to monitor their citizens
- In it, the City of Seattle also listed its official definition of surveillance and its protocol for bringing in new surveillance equipment
Seattle’s definition of surveillance: technologies that “observe or analyze the movements, behaviors, or actions of identifiable individuals in a manner that is reasonably likely to raise concerns about civil liberties, freedom of speech or association, racial equity or social justice.”
It’s important to note that some technologies – including police body cameras and everyday office tech – are excluded from this law.
For new technology that meets the criteria for Seattle’s definition of surveillance, a City department needs to file a Survelliance Impact Report (“SIR”). This report includes a full analysis of the privacy implications should this technology be used – especially with regard to equity and community impact.
When bringing in new technology with the intent of using it for surveillance, the City of Seattle has provided this cool diagram (there are 7 steps to this process):
A Master List of Seattle’s Survelliance Technologies is available to the public, revised as of December 2019. Some of the technologies listed include License Plate Readers, and Traffic Cameras (Closed Circuit Television Equipment) for monitoring vehicles and traffic violations, and FLIR, Video Recording Systems, and Situational Awareness Camera (non-recording) for use within the Seattle Police Department. As of December 2019, the City of Seattle does not use facial recognition technology to assist its law enforcement/emergency departments.
But now, let’s talk ethics. Some of the devices that Seattle uses are non-recording. But a lot of them are. This raises a couple ethical questions:
1) What are the ethics of recording people without their consent, even if facial recognition is not enforced?
2) Is refusal to being recorded a personal right? Should someone be able to refuse being part of a recording?
3) If video recordings are not archived (for example, traffic camera recordings are not archived) then is that still a violation of someone’s personal privacy? Or is that not a violation, because the data is only used to watch for traffic violations and then erased?
The surveillance practices implemented in Seattle are certainly more lenient than China or the United Kingdom, but they are also most definitely present. That begs the question – where is the line? Between privacy and safety?
Hope you learned something new, and thanks for reading!
Sources Cited:
History/Philosophy of Science with Gabi 