Will Facial Recognition and Digital Surveillance End Anonymous Protest?
It’s been almost two weeks since people first took to the streets in Minneapolis to protest police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police. Since then, demonstrations have gained momentum and spread to cities across the US and world.
Protest is a critical component of healthy democracy, a megaphone to grab the attention of those in power and compel change. In the US, it’s a constitutional right. But increasingly, law enforcement agencies are requesting protest footage and images, and the latest technologies are bringing with them the power to cast an ever wider surveillance net.
When San Francisco became the first US city to ban facial recognition in May 2019, perhaps legislators had something like the recent weeks in mind. The Bay Area is no stranger to civil disobedience and demonstration. But in bygone eras, anonymous protest was guaranteed by numbers. Just a face in the crowd actually meant something. Now, with smartphones, high-definition cameras, and powerful algorithms, anonymous protest may soon be a thing of the past.
