Artificial Intelligence body cameras Facial Recognition
EPIC, Coalition Urge Ethics Board to Prevent the Use of Facial Recognition on Body Cameras
In a letter to Axon's Artificial Intelligence Ethics Board, EPIC and a coalition of civil rights and civil liberties groups called upon the Board to prevent Axon, the largest provider of police body cameras, from implementing real-time facial recognition. The letter states that "real-time facial recognition would chill the constitutional freedoms of speech and association." In 2015, EPIC forewarned that body cameras implemented for police accountability "could easily become a system of mass surveillance." EPIC also highlighted at the time that "the benefits of body cameras as a tool of police accountability have not been established." Last year, the largest study to date of police body cameras concluded that the cameras had no impact on police use of force and civilian complaints.