A bill passed in Virginia will ban local law-enforcement agencies from using facial recognition technology without prior legislative approval starting July 1, 2021. The bill further requires any local police agency eventually authorized to have "exclusive control" over the facial recognition system, preventing the use of Clearview AI and other commercial FR products. However, Virginia State Police and other state law enforcement agencies may continue to use facial recognition. EPIC and a coalition recently urged New York City Council to enact a comprehensive ban on facial recognition. EPIC leads a campaign to Ban Face Surveillance and through the Public Voice Coalition gathered support from over 100 organizations and experts from more than 30 countries.
EPIC and a coalition sent letters to Attorney General Garland and the Senate Judiciary Committee urging them to conduct oversight and review agency implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. The coalition requested the Senate Judiciary to hold an oversight hearing on agency FOIA compliance. The committee's last oversight hearing on FOIA was more than three years ago. The letter to Senate Judiciary states, "[I]t is imperative that the Committee provide oversight of agencies' compliance with FOIA, both to understand FOIA implementation by the Trump administration, as well as to seek commitments to comply with the law from the newly confirmed Biden administration officials." The coalition also asked Attorney General Garland to follow the precedent of many former AGs and issue a memorandum to agencies on how to interpret and apply the FOIA and to support legislative reform. During Sunshine Week, Attorney General Garland remarked that for the Justice Department to succeed, it must adhere to "the principles that have become core to our DNA" and that "faithful administration of FOIA is essential to American democracy." EPIC recently published its 2021 FOIA Gallery highlighting EPIC's most significant open government cases and records obtained through government records requests.
A trove of sensitive personal data from more than 500 million Facebook users was posted online over the weekend, according to press reports. The leaked data includes names, phone numbers, email addresses, birthdates, location information, and biographical details. The original breach of personal data appears to have occurred in 2019. At least one privacy regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, has launched an investigation into Facebook's handling of the breach. The Commissioner's office said today that it had "received no proactive communication from Facebook" following the disclosure of personal data. EPIC has fought for transparency and accountability for Facebook's privacy abuses for over a decade, from filing the original FTC Complaint in 2009 that led to the FTC's 2012 Consent Order with the company, to moving to intervene in and filing an amicus brief challenging the FTC's 2019 settlement with Facebook.
