Going to the grocery store or seeing a concert shouldn’t mean New Yorkers fork over their most sensitive biometric information to be analyzed and compared against watch lists. But in a growing number of stores, restaurants, hotels, entertainment venues and other places of public accommodation, businesses are scanning customers and subjecting them to invasive, faulty, and biased biometric surveillance.
I’m writing to ask you to pass S.8004/A.6211, which would ban biometric surveillance in places of public accommodation to ensure New Yorkers can access public spaces without fear of being tracked or wrongly excluded from daily life.
Biometric surveillance technologies like facial recognition are inaccurate and biased, especially when used on women, children, and people of color. When deployed in places of public accommodation – including when companies use it to decide who to let in or keep out – these error-prone technologies can have far reaching consequences for people trying to go about their lives. There are countless stories of this technology resulting in misidentification, searches, and wrongful arrests of innocent people.
Further, businesses using facial recognition are lucrative targets for identity thieves and hackers. And unlike a driver’s license or a social security card, when bad actors steal biometric data, it can’t be replaced or changed.
Visiting retail stores, restaurants, museums, entertainment venues, or health care facilities shouldn’t force New Yorkers to give up their sensitive biometric information. Banning biometric surveillance in places of public accommodation is necessary to ensure New Yorkers can access these spaces without fear of being tracked or wrongly excluded from daily life. That’s why you must pass the biometric surveillance ban today.
