EPIC has joined the National Consumer Law Center and other consumer groups in recommending limits to FCC exemptions to the broad federal ban on robocalls. Under the TRACED Act, which Congress passed last year, the FCC is required to specify certain limits to new and existing exemptions to the robocall ban, including the number of calls that can be made under each exemption. The consumer groups recommend that the FCC place strict limits on the most intrusive calls, such as those made to collect a debt. Last week, EPIC filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to preserve the broad ban on robocalls. EPIC has done extensive work on the federal anti-robocall law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
EPIC Law Fellow, Jake Wiener, spoke at the Department of Homeland Security's Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee's public meeting today and urged the Committee to investigate rampant privacy and civil liberties violations by fusion centers. Fusion centers are centralized systems that pool and analyze intelligence from federal, state, local, and private sector entities. Addressing the Committee's new tasking, Mr. Wiener directed the Committee's attention to recent reports of protest monitoring and ineffective privacy oversight. He urged the Committee to recommend a ban on the use of facial recognition technology at fusion centers and to consider whether funding of fusion centers is justified in light of the privacy and civil liberties harms the centers create. EPIC previously urged the Advisory Committee to recommend that Customs and Border Protection halt the use of facial recognition.
EPIC joined over 20 consumer, privacy, civil liberties, and student organizations to call on the University of Miami to ban the use of facial recognition technology. The coalition letter comes after reports the University used facial recognition to identify student protesters. The coalition argued that "facial recognition technology is invasive and ineffective." EPIC has launched a campaign to Ban Face Surveillance and through the Public Voice coalition gathered the support of over 100 organizations and many leading experts across 30 plus countries. Earlier this year, an EPIC-led coalition called on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to recommend the suspension of face surveillance systems across the federal government.
