Friday, March 26, 2021

ACLU Looks into AI Surveillance



The American Civil Liberties Union is focusing on the intersection of citizen rights, bias, and AI voice, data, video surveillance.   

AI algorithms are powerful for understanding and targeting people's interests, behavior, and purchasing habits.  These tools are also heavily utilized to surveil populations.  The most visible example can be seen in China, where the country has built a widespread video and data monitoring system powered by AI that assigns a risk score to individuals and allows the country to identify, police, and silence residents that share critical or dissenting opinions.  The "social credit" risk score is utilized to restrict travel, purchasing decisions, professional opportunities. 

The ACLU has noted its concern for how the United States has historically and plans to use video and voice data within the department of Homeland Security. It's specifically looking to learn whether Homeland Security or departments has been biased against marginalized communities. To explore the issue the ACLU has filed a request via the Freedom of Information Act with the CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security to investigate further. 

source: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/aclu-seeks-records-on-government-use-of-ai-in-national-security

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