FLYING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

DEAR AJL AGENT OF CHANGE,

Summer 2023 is off to a blazing start. I had the honor of meeting with President Biden to discuss ways to prevent algorithmic harms at the White House AI Roundtable.

We also launched the #InPlaneSight campaign to bring awareness to the increased use of facial recognition for domestic travelers at airports in the United States. We want you to know you have the right to opt out of the TSA’s biometric-identity pilot program. We want to hear about your travel experiences. Did you see signage, were you verbally asked to consent. Do you have concerns about the program?

Let your voice be heard at fly.ajl.org

QUICK LINKS:

Media Highlights

• Democracy Now!: Risks of TSA’s Facial Recognition Pilot 
• Bloomberg Technology: AJL Founder Readout of Meeting with Biden

Excoded Story

• FastCompany: TSA to expand its facial recognition program to over 400 airports
• Share Your TSA Scorecard: fly.ajl.org
• Share #InPlaneSight Campaign: Campaign Toolkit
• Retweet: @AJLUnited

Watch video and share the campaign toolkit.

IN PLANE SIGHT CAMPAIGN

Earlier this year, the TSA announced it would be piloting a new facial recognition ID process at security lines in 25 airports across the country – using a camera to scan our faces, rather than having an agent check our identification documents to verify our identity. In reality, this is a phased rollout, not a pilot that threatens to expose more people to unwanted  face surveillance.

Summer travelers should know they have a right to refusal that they should exercise and protect. The TSA has made it clear the aim is to make biometrics mandatory, further creating a world where our faces are the final frontier of privacy. Now is the time to demand a better way. Help us keep the government accountable by sharing your experience flying this summer using the AJL TSA Scorecard. We do not have to accept the harvesting of our faces.

Share your travel experiences with us via: fly.ajl.org

Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz

PRESIDENT BIDEN AI ROUNDTABLE

Dr. Buolamwini met with President Biden, Governor Newsom, Arati Prabhakar -the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and seven other experts to discuss the promise and perils of AI. She focused on biometric rights sharing on Democracy Now!: 

“[Recently], we had EU lawmakers push forward the EU AI Act, which explicitly bans the use of biometric technologies, like facial recognition, in public spaces, the live use of this technology. We are flying in exactly the opposite direction, where people don’t even know — right? — that they have a choice to opt out.

I also think that this is a great opportunity for the U.S. government to put into place the Blueprint for a Bill of Rights for AI. And so, this blueprint came out last year, and it highlights so many of the issues that we’ve been talking about, which is the need for notice, and we need consent, as well, but also we need protections from algorithmic discrimination. We need to know that these systems are safe and effective. We need data privacy, so that you can’t just snatch people’s faces, right?"

The time to resist the rise of biometric surveillance is now!

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ABOUT THE ALGORITHMIC JUSTICE LEAGUE (AJL)

The Algorithmic Justice League is an organization that combines art and advocacy to illuminate the social implications and harms of artificial intelligence (AI). We are reducing AI harms in society and increasing the accountability in the use of AI systems.

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