Nevertheless, the pandemic has created an opportunity for technology companies, with some of them - including those bidding for the pilot project with Hawaii - creating COVID-19-specific products. Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies over their use of the technology. The ACLU’s national organization has sued the U.S. It has drawn widespread criticism over lack of regulation, the possibility of faulty technology and bias, among other issues. The debate over the use of facial recognition technology is not unique to Hawaii. For example, the state tried to subpoena Hawaiian Airlines records for people who had donated their miles to people participating in demonstrations on Mauna Kea. His organization has already heard from interisland travelers who have privacy concerns because of surveillance at Hawaii airports, he said. “Ultimately, what we’re asking for now is transparency and open discussions. “To me, it feels like adopting technology for the sake of technology,” Caballero said. Yet, the technology also has the potential to miss people who actually have the virus but do not have a fever, because research suggests that temperature checks alone are not a reliable way of determining COVID-19 infections, he said. “This is a technology that could potentially be unconstitutional.” “You’re being followed without you knowing you’re being followed,” he said. ACLU Hawaii’s Legal Director, Mateo Caballero, is raising concerns about facial recognition technology’s potential for abuse. The problem with facial recognition technology is that unlike most other biometric systems, such as fingerprinting, it can be used in a “passive” way that doesn’t require any participation, said ACLU’s Caballero. “People should not think of the features in a spy movie,” he said. The data would not include any sensitive information, he said. The security of the data will be determined by the selected company. Rules governing the use of the facial recognition technology, including how long the pictures are kept, are being developed by state officials, including the transportation department and the attorney general’s office, Sakahara said. “People have their pictures taken about a dozen times a day once they leave their house without knowing,” he added. When pictures are taken, they won’t be shared with other agencies and the pictures will be deleted within about 30 minutes, he said. “If someone walks through and they don’t have a fever, their picture would not be taken at all.” “That’s simply for the employees to have the ability to pull them aside,” he said. “While we understand the urgent need to fight the spread of COVID-19 and safely reopen Hawaii’s economy,” the ACLU letter says, “indiscriminate and rushed use of FRT-particularly without adequate regulations, transparency, and public discussion-is ineffective, unnecessary, rife for abuse, expensive, potentially unconstitutional, and, in a word, ‘terrifying.’”ĭOT Spokesman Tim Sakahara said the scanning technology takes a picture of people walking through the thermal scanners who exceed the temperature threshold. The ACLU of Hawaii is asking the state to release all government records related to the use of the facial recognition technology in Hawaii, and respond to its concerns about the potential for abuse. “These are things we should know before we take such a big leap into real-time biometric surveillance at the airports,” he added. “That’s one of the big problems - that we know so little,” he said. However, the announcement provided few details about important factors, including how the technology actually works, how much it’s going to cost, what the rules and guidelines are and who will have access to the data, said Mateo Caballero, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, which has submitted a letter calling on the state to “hit the brakes” on the pilot program The state is considering four different proposals involving five different companies to install facial recognition and thermal scanning technology to scan for high temperatures in its effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The state will pick one bidder after June 26 to install cameras at gates to screen travelers with temperatures higher than 100.4 degrees. The Hawaii Department of Transportation announced the program’s launch on June 10, saying five companies - NEC and Infrared Cameras, which are now partnering with each other, FLIR, iOmniscient and Omnisense - will demonstrate their technologies at Honolulu, Kailua-Kona, Hilo, Kahului and Lihue airports. As Hawaii continues to test facial recognition and thermal scanning technology this week for a pilot program to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a civil rights group is raising concerns about invasion of privacy.
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