Netchoice calls NTIA facial recognition meeting “extremely productive”

NetChoice, an association of eCommerce businesses and online consumers, called last week’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration’s facial recognition meeting “extremely productive”, according to a report by Broadcasting & Cable.

Last week, NTIA held a multistakeholders meeting in an effort to implement guidelines that will instill greater transparency and data protection regarding facial recognition technology.

The main purpose for the meeting was to vet two proposed privacy best practices for facial recognition, both by stakeholders, including one proposed by NetChoice.

“Today was extremely productive as a diverse group of stakeholders made clear steps toward establishing facial recognition technology policies and regulations that foster transparency, control and closure,” said Carl Szabo, policy counsel for NetChoice. “I think we all agree that companies using facial recognition technologies should provide people with meaningful control when their facial image data is shared with others who might not otherwise have access to or are authorized to have access to that data.”

Szabo also addressed the numerous consumer groups and privacy advocates who decided to withdraw from the process last month because they felt that the process would not result in sufficiently strong privacy guidelines.

“We continue to encourage all interested parties to participate in this inclusive and cooperative process,” said Szabo.

The privacy groups said they not confident that the industry stakeholders are able to agree on an opt-in model and have recommended the remaining participants to reevaluate the general effectiveness of the multistakeholder process.

NetChoice said there is an inherent risk of overregulating the facial recognition space, adding that the organization wants to ensure that “the wide range of everyday consumer uses of facial recognition remain free of unnecessary regulatory mandates like getting express written consent from friends and family before tagging them in personal photo albums.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  commercial applications  |  facial recognition  |  NTIA