Legislation to ban government use of facial recognition hits Senate for the third time

Biometric technology may make it easy to unlock your phone, but democratic lawmakers have long cautioned against the use of facial recognition and biometrics by law enforcement. Not only have researchers documented instances of racial and gender bias in such systems, false positives have even led to real instances of wrongful arrest. That's why lawmakers have re-introduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Act. This actually marks the third time the bill was introduced to the Senate -- despite being introduced in 2020 and 2021, the act was never advanced to a vote. If passed, the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Act would outright ban any use of facial recognition or biometric surveillance by the federal government unless that use is explicitly approved by an Act of Congress.