The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the Massachusetts U.S. District Court, states there are “serious questions” about the technologies’ reliability, including accurately identifying people of color.
“These technologies therefore elevate the risk that an innocent person will falsely be associated with criminal activity,” the suit states.
The ACLU is seeking the fulfillment of its January Freedom of Information Act request to the departments, which the ACLU says it has not received a response since February.
“The public urgently needs to know how the federal government is using face surveillance and other remote biometric monitoring systems in Massachusetts and across the nation,” Kade Crockford, a director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a release.
Earlier this year, Somerville banned its municipal government from using facial recognition programs, and the suit states Brookline, Springfield and Cambridge are all considering similar prohibitions.
Two Beacon Hill Democrats have also filed legislation in the House and Senate to halt the use of facial recognition software, and Gov. Charlie Baker previously indicated he’s not in a rush to regulate the software at the state level.
The Justice Department, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration — the federal agencies named in the suit — declined to comment.
Law enforcement submitted 265 requests in 2018 for facial recognition with the Registry of Motor Vehicle’s driver’s license database, including 29 from federal law enforcement agencies, MassDOT previously said.
Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley has also co-sponsored legislation that would prohibit the use of biometric recognition technology in public housing funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Fight for the Future, a digital rights group launched the first major national campaign against the software earlier this year after a Washington Post report that said FBI and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have turned state driver’s licenses databases into a “facial-recognition gold mine,” scanning millions of photos without Americans’ knowledge or consent.
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