ALT Organizing Black Urges Baltimore City Council: Ban Facial Recognition Technology Baltimore, MD –– Organizing Black—Baltimore City’s leading grassroots organization dedicated to building civic power with Black Baltimoreans ages 18-35—mobilized a call-in day to urge Baltimore City Council to extend the temporary ban on facial recognition technology into a permanent one. On December 31, 2022 the City’s temporary ban on facial recognition technology is set to expire paving the way for businesses, public spaces (i.e. parks, libraries, etc), government agencies and the like to mount continuous video-feed cameras that will scan, record and store resident’s faces and enter them into a database to be matched with publicly-available information about a person including social media profiles, tagged photos and arrest data. Organizing Black issued the following statement on facial recognition technology (cont on the following pic)

ALT Imagine having prison-like cameras recording your every move no matter where you are? At your favorite restaurant or bar, at the doctor’s office, at the bus stop or gas station, at the market. Your picture could be picked up from anywhere and used as proof-positive of any alleged wrongdoing. That’s the future we’re up against if the ban is not extended,” said Sam Master of Organizing Black. “This is extraordinarily dangerous because not only is facial recognition software notoriously bad at identifying darker-skinned people, women and LGBTQ people—it’s an invasion of privacy and an active assault on free speech and assembly. Facial recognition technology has no place in the hands of government bureaucrats or in our city.” (Cont on next pic)

ALT Rob Ferrell, Senior Organizer with Organizing Black stated, “As we’ve looked across the country at how facial recognition technology has been used, it’s been overwhelmingly clear that more surveillance does not lead to more safety. We have a city-wide responsibility to decrease violence and interpersonal harm and we can do that by working to meet the material needs of poor and working class people, and investing in the capacity of grassroots organizations to build community and transform conflict. Indiscriminate surveillance of the entire city will only lead to further criminalization of Black communities, Black women, immigrants, gender-nonconforming inividuals, and sex workers. For these reasons, we whole-heartedly urge City Council members to pass a permanent ban on facial recognition technology.” Image of a police tool belt with handcuffs, a gun, stick and facial scanner captioned with: Facial recognition tech is another tool in cops tool belt to harass and spy on our communities.