Security News > 2021 > June > Feds Told to Better Manage Facial Recognition, Amid Privacy Concerns

A GAO report finds government agencies are using the technology regularly in criminal investigations and to identify travelers, but need stricter management to protect people's privacy and avoid inaccurate identification.

Though the federal government widely uses facial recognition for various uses from criminal investigations to collecting traveler data, this use is largely unmonitored and unmanaged - a scenario that must change to protect people's privacy and avoid inaccurate identification of perpetrators, a government watchdog report has found.

"Thirteen federal agencies do not have awareness of what non-federal systems with facial-recognition technology are used by employees," according to the GAO. "These agencies have therefore not fully assessed the potential risks of using these systems, such as risks related to privacy and accuracy."

Facial recognition has always been a controversial technology and an especially sore subject with privacy experts, leading to government regulation and court challenges to the collection of this type of biometric data.

The New York-based company's collection of facial-recognition data, which it call "Faceprints," was even ruled illegal earlier this year by a joint investigation of privacy authorities led by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for violating federal and provincial privacy laws.

For its part, the GAO made two recommendations to each of 13 federal agencies who don't have monitoring systems for their use of facial recognition in place "To implement a mechanism to track what non-federal systems are used by employees, and assess the risks of using these systems," according to the report.

News URL

https://threatpost.com/feds-manage-facial-recognition-privacy-concerns/167419/