{"id":43290,"date":"2024-03-23T23:12:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T03:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=43290"},"modified":"2024-03-23T23:12:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T03:12:23","slug":"nate-freed-wessler-deputy-director-of-the-aclus-speech-privacy-and-technology-project-calls-facial-recognition-cameras-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/03\/23\/nate-freed-wessler-deputy-director-of-the-aclus-speech-privacy-and-technology-project-calls-facial-recognition-cameras-dangerous\/","title":{"rendered":"Nate Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU\u2019s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project calls facial recognition cameras \u2018dangerous.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Thirteen cameras installed, and in the process of being installed, in downtown Lakeland are equipped with facial recognition technology<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Nate Freed Wessler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The leader of the public entity that purchased them, the Lakeland Downtown Development Authority, said it is a matter of public safety. However facial recognition technology has not been publicly talked about until now.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe love our visitors. We want everyone to be safe,\u201d said Julie Townsend, executive director of the LDDA, which advocates for downtown businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Townsend said the technology is \u201chyper-focused\u201d on three specific people right now, considered \u201cpersons of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we have a photo of a person that we have identified as a person of interest, we can upload that to the system, and then when that person is found on a camera throughout the district, it\u2019ll send us an alert,\u201d said Townsend.<\/p>\n\n\n

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That alert goes to the LDDA clean and safe manager Tony Davila and Lakeland police officers who patrol downtown, Davila said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three \u201cpersons of interest\u201d have been trespassed several times at local businesses, threatened staff, and\/or been trespassed at the farmer\u2019s market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is really a five-alarm fire for privacy rights,\u201d<\/strong> said Nate Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU\u2019s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He calls facial recognition cameras \u2018dangerous.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a technology that has enormous potential to harm our basic rights to privacy and liberty in a free society and government entities should not be monkeying around in this way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wessler said other jurisdictions in the country have rejected this kind of technology because of privacy concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Wessler said the ACLU will look into the situation in Lakeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cameras, which cost $115,000, should be fully installed by the end of April.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirteen cameras installed, and in the process of being installed, in downtown Lakeland are equipped with facial recognition technology. The leader of the public entity that purchased them, the Lakeland… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[7922,7921,7919,7920],"class_list":["post-43290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-and-technology-project-calls-facial-recognition-cameras-dangerous","tag-deputy-director-of-the-aclus-speech","tag-nate-freed-wessler","tag-privacy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43293,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43290\/revisions\/43293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}