Proposal Wants To Keep Big Brother's Eye Shut

A City Council member is proposing legislation to prevent your privacy from being invaded.

Law enforcement used facial recognition technology during this year's Super Bowl, causing some to call the big game the Snooper Bowl.

The Ybor City District in Tampa uses the technology on a regular basis, to scan faces in the crowd against photographs in a computer database of 30,000 criminals and runaways.

Now, hundreds of protesters want the cameras there shut down.

City Council member Dr. Gwen Chandler-Thompson wants to make sure that the controversial system doesn't turn its eye on Jacksonville.

"We all have to worry about an invasion of our privacy," Chandler-Thompson says. "Citizens don't want or should not want the government looking down their throats."

Chandler-Thompson backs a proposal to ban the use of facial recognition technology in Jacksonville.

She says that the risk is too great for misidentification and misuse.

"Who wants to be misidentified?" Chandler-Thompson says. "I don't want to be and I don't think the citizens of Jacksonville would want to be."

Sponsors question the constitutionality of using cameras in public places because they say the devices threaten the right to privacy.

"That will make you look over your shoulder all the time," an unidentified resident said. "A person shouldn't feel like that, that someone is watching you all the time."

"I don't like being filmed when I don't know about it," an unidentified resident said.

But others say the use of facial recognition technology may be a sign of the times.

"We've already got cameras in convenience stores and the malls," an unidentified resident said. "They're already around. That lends credence to the fact that it's not going to cause problems when used properly."

The legislation banning facial recognition technology in Jacksonville is headed to two City Council committees.

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• August 9, 2001: Business Week On Surveillance Cameras