Facial recognition surveillance and public space: protecting protest movements

As Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion, and pro-democracy demonstrations in Chile and Hong Kong demonstrate, protest movements are gathering momentum across the world. Simultaneously, governments have been expanding their surveillance capacities in the name of safeguarding the public and addressing emergencies. Highlighting the lack of oversight and accountability measures on government use of facial recognition technology in public space, the article underscores how facial recognition technology has undermined the right to engage in peaceful assembly and augmented state power. It also highlights the pivotal role of technology companies in aiding governments with public space surveillance and suppression of protests. It argues that facial recognition regulation must redistribute power not only by breaking and taxing tech companies, fortifying regulatory enforcement, and increasing public scrutiny by adopting prohibitive laws, but also by democratizing big tech companies by making them public utilities and giving people a say on how these companies should be governed. Crucially, we must also decolonize facial recognition governance discourse through recognizing the colonial practices of extraction and exploitation and listening to the voices of Indigenous peoples and communities. With these efforts, a new facial recognition regulation will ensure that political movements and protests can flourish in the modern state.