QUESTION
What can be done to ensure meaningful consent and understanding by users regarding the collection and use of their biometric data?
2:26:58
·
3 min
Council member Gutiérrez questions if there are steps that can be taken beyond terms of service agreements to ensure users truly understand and consent to the collection and use of their biometric data.
- The council member expresses skepticism that most users actually read through lengthy terms of service.
- Albert Fox Cahn from the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project argues that terms of service are insufficient for obtaining meaningful consent on sensitive data practices.
- Cahn suggests stronger structural protections are needed to ban the commercialization of sensitive data like biometrics and location tracking.
- Nina Loshkajian notes the NYPD is currently not complying with requirements around disclosing their use of technologies like facial recognition.
Jennifer Gutiérrez
2:26:58
And my my last comment question is, I think oftentimes in these spaces for folks who support the use of biometric data, particularly with law enforcement's agencies, MPD, They'll kinda put the onus on on the user.
2:27:15
Right?
2:27:15
Like, well, it's in it's in the terms of service.
2:27:18
Like, who I I don't I can't tell you the I mean, I you know what I mean?
2:27:21
Like, the reality of reading through pages and pages of terms of service.
2:27:25
Is there something else I know, obviously, these bills are are reflection of that, but is there something else that we can do where the onus isn't on us?
2:27:33
Is there something that we should be requiring these individual companies, agencies even to require more consent opting in knowledge.
2:27:46
Often times, I don't think that people understand that the terms of of their service agreement Is is that is, you know, allowing to to share your information with nobody you'll ever know, no no third party you'll ever understand.
2:27:58
Is there anything else that other localities are doing?
2:28:01
Is there anything else that we we can do?
2:28:04
And then I'll pass it to council member, Henif.
Albert Fox Cahn
2:28:07
I mean, Look, as a privacy layer, I think of terms of service as just a shared lie that we buy into this you know, this facade that people are going to actually go through and read these terms that they're going to understand these terms that they're going to consent to.
2:28:29
No one reads them.
2:28:30
No one would be and even if you do read them, you even as a as a lawyer, I really could actually understand them.
2:28:38
And so I think anytime we're putting the onus on people to sort of make these truly, like, sometimes life altering decisions about what data is made accessible to other people.
2:28:53
In the fine print of a menu that they download in some free weather app or some free, you know, traffic app.
2:29:01
To me, that is a broken system.
2:29:03
So I think we need structural protections that ban the commercialization of our most sensitive data that shut down this, you know, massive market in in selling our location data to the highest bidder.
2:29:17
And that you know, really just start to outlaw some of the most abusive forms of facial recognition of their biometric data collection and say that we should never be putting someone in the position that they're one mouse click away from, you know, wiping away all of their privacy protections.
Nina Loshkajian
2:29:34
Can I add briefly to that because you talked about in your question the PDU specifically?
2:29:40
There's also, you know, a lot of requirements that the NYPD is currently under that they're not complying with, under the post act they're failing to comply.
2:29:50
With the
Jennifer Gutiérrez
2:29:51
They don't use facial recognition technology.
2:29:56
It's what they say.
2:29:57
It's what they said.
Nina Loshkajian
2:29:58
Well, they don't use it as a sole basis for arrest.
2:30:00
But then, you know, there's a so their their IUP on facial recognition is boilerplate language.
Jennifer Gutiérrez
2:30:06
Mhmm.
Nina Loshkajian
2:30:07
And that so holding their feet to the fire in terms of actually asking them to comply with the minimal requirements of things like the post act.
2:30:15
That's another thing you could do.
2:30:16
We could explore And there is also different legislation on this, but we could explore, you know, more requirements before deployment of this technology because oftentimes we'll find that after this biometric tracking is already pervasive.
2:30:30
The harm has already been caused, and it's too much to ask them to do anything after the fact.
2:30:35
So just to address kind of PDU specifically, actually requiring them to comply with the current law, to comply with to comply with foil because you've also been litigating to get information from them for years years about how they use facial recognition.
2:30:50
So those types of things are also avenues to explore.
