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How many of you
have ever heard someone say

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privacy is dead?

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Raise your hand.

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How many of you have heard someone say

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they don't care about their privacy
because they don't have anything to hide?

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Go on.

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(Laughter)

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Now, how many of you
use any kind of encryption software?

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Raise your hand.

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Or a password
to protect an online account?

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Or curtains or blinds
on your windows at home?

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(Laughter)

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OK, so that's everyone, I think.

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(Laughter)

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So why do you do these things?

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My guess is,

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it's because you care about your privacy.

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The idea that privacy is dead is a myth.

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The idea that people
don't care about their privacy

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because "they have nothing to hide"

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or they've done nothing wrong

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is also a myth.

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I'm guessing that you would not want
to publicly share on the internet,

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for the world to see,

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all of your medical records.

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Or your search histories
from your phone or your computer.

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And I bet

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that if the government
wanted to put a chip in your brain

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to transmit every one of your thoughts
to a centralized government computer,

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you would balk at that.

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(Laughter)

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That's because you care
about your privacy,

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like every human being.

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So, our world has changed fast.

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And today, there is understandably
a lot of confusion

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about what privacy is and why it matters.

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Privacy is not secrecy.

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It's control.

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I share information with my doctor
about my body and my health,

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expecting that she is not
going to turn around

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and share that information
with my parents,

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or my boss or my kids.

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That information is private, not secret.

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I'm in control over how
that information is shared.

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You've probably heard people say
that there's a fundamental tension

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between privacy on the one hand

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and safety on the other.

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But the technologies
that advance our privacy

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also advance our safety.

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Think about fences, door locks,

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curtains on our windows, passwords,

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encryption software.

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All of these technologies

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simultaneously protect
our privacy and our safety.

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Dragnet surveillance,
on the other hand, protects neither.

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In recent years,

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the federal government
tasked a group of experts

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called The Privacy and Civil Liberties
Oversight Board

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with examining post-9/11
government surveillance programs,

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dragnet surveillance programs.

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Those experts could not find
a single example

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of that dragnet surveillance
advancing any safety --

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didn't identify or stop
a single terrorist attack.

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You know what that information
was useful for, though?

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Helping NSA employees
spy on their romantic interests.

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(Laughter)

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(Audience: Wow.)

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Another example is closer to home.

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So millions of people
across the United States and the world

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are adopting so-called
"smart home" devices,

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like internet-connected
surveillance cameras.

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But we know that any technology
connected to the internet

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can be hacked.

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And so if a hacker

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gets into your internet-connected
surveillance camera at home,

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they can watch you
and your family coming and going,

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finding just the right time to strike.

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You know what can't be hacked remotely?

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Curtains.

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(Laughter)

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Fences.

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Door locks.

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(Laughter)

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Privacy is not the enemy of safety.

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It is its guarantor.

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Nonetheless, we daily face
a propaganda onslaught

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telling us that we have to give up
some privacy in exchange for safety

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through surveillance programs.

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Face surveillance is the most dangerous
of these technologies.

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There are two primary ways today
governments use technologies like this.

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One is face recognition.

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That's to identify someone in an image.

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The second is face surveillance,

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which can be used in concert

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with surveillance-camera
networks and databases

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to create records of all people's
public movements,

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habits and associations,

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effectively creating a digital panopticon.

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This is a panopticon.

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It's a prison designed to allow
a few guards in the center

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to monitor everything happening
in the cells around the perimeter.

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The people in those prison cells
can't see inside the guard tower,

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but the guards can see
into every inch of those cells.

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The idea here

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is that if the people
in those prison cells

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know they're being watched all the time,

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or could be,

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they'll behave accordingly.

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Similarly, face surveillance
enables a centralized authority --

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in this case, the state --

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to monitor the totality
of human movement and association

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in public space.

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And here's what it looks like

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in real life.

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In this case, it's not a guard in a tower,

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but rather a police analyst
in a spy center.

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The prison expands beyond its walls,

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encompassing everyone,

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everywhere, all the time.

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In a free society,

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this should terrify us all.

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For decades now, we've watched cop shows

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that push a narrative that says

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technologies like face surveillance
ultimately serve the public good.

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But real life is not a cop drama.

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The bad guy didn't always do it,

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the cops definitely
aren't always the good guys

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and the technology doesn't always work.

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Take the case of Steve Talley,

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a financial analyst from Colorado.

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In 2015, Talley was arrested,
and he was charged with bank robbery

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on the basis of an error
in a facial recognition system.

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Talley fought that case

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and he eventually was cleared
of those charges,

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but while he was being
persecuted by the state,

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he lost his house, his job and his kids.

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Steve Talley's case is an example

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of what can happen
when the technology fails.

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But face surveillance is just as dangerous
when it works as advertized.

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Just consider how trivial it would be

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for a government agency
to put a surveillance camera

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outside a building where people meet
for Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

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They could connect that camera

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to a face-surveillance algorithm
and a database,

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press a button and sit back and collect

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a record of every person
receiving treatment for alcoholism.

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It would be just as easy
for a government agency

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to use this technology
to automatically identify

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every person who attended
the Women's March

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or a Black Lives Matter protest.

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Even the technology industry
is aware of the gravity of this problem.

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Microsoft's president Brad Smith
has called on Congress to intervene.

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Google, for its part,

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has publicly declined
to ship a face surveillance product,

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in part because of these grave
human and civil rights concerns.

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And that's a good thing.

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Because ultimately,

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protecting our open society
is much more important

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than corporate profit.

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The ACLU's nationwide campaign

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to get the government to pump the brakes

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on the adoption
of this dangerous technology

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has prompted reasonable questions
from thoughtful people.

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What makes this technology
in particular so dangerous?

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Why can't we just regulate it?

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In short, why the alarm?

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Face surveillance is uniquely dangerous
for two related reasons.

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One is the nature
of the technology itself.

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And the second is that our system

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fundamentally lacks the oversight
and accountability mechanisms

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that would be necessary

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to ensure it would not be abused
in the government's hands.

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First, face surveillance enables
a totalizing form of surveillance

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never before possible.

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Every single person's every visit
to a friend's house,

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a government office,

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a house of worship,

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a Planned Parenthood,

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a cannabis shop,

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a strip club;

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every single person's public movements,
habits and associations

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documented and catalogued,

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not on one day, but on every day,

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merely with the push of a button.

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This kind of totalizing mass surveillance

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fundamentally threatens
what it means to live in a free society.

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Our freedom of speech,
freedom of association,

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freedom of religion,

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freedom of the press,

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our privacy,

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our right to be left alone.

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You may be thinking,

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"OK, come on, but there are tons
of ways the government can spy on us."

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And yes, it's true,

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the government can track us
through our cell phones,

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but if I want to go to get an abortion,

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or attend a political meeting,

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or even just call in sick
and play hooky and go to the beach ...

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(Laughter)

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I can leave my phone at home.

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I cannot leave my face at home.

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And that brings me
to my second primary concern:

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How we might meaningfully
regulate this technology.

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Today, if the government wants to know
where I was last week,

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they can't just hop into a time machine
and go back in time and follow me.

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And they also, the local police right now,

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don't maintain any centralized
system of tracking,

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where they're cataloging every person's
public movements all the time,

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just in case that information
some day becomes useful.

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Today, if the government
wants to know where I was last week,

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or last month or last year,

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they have to go to a judge, get a warrant

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and then serve that warrant
on my phone company,

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which by the way, has a financial interest
in protecting my privacy.

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With face surveillance,

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no such limitations exist.

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This is technology that is 100 percent
controlled by the government itself.

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So how would a warrant requirement
work in this context?

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Is the government going to go to a judge

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and get a warrant,

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and then serve the warrant on themselves?

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That would be like me giving you my diary,

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and saying, "Here,
you can hold on to this forever,

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but you can't read it
until I say it's OK."

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So what can we do?

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The only answer to the threat

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posed by the government's use
of face surveillance

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is to deny the government the capacity
to violate the public's trust,

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by denying the government the ability

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to build these in-house
face-surveillance networks.

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And that's exactly what we're doing.

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The ACLU is part of a nationwide campaign

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to pump the brakes on the government's use
of this dangerous technology.

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We've already been successful,

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from San Francisco
to Somerville, Massachusetts,

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we have passed municipal bans

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on the government's
use of this technology.

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And plenty of other communities
here in Massachusetts

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and across the country

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are debating similar measures.

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Some people have told me
that this movement is bound to fail.

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That ultimately,

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merely because the technology exists,

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it will be deployed in every context

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by every government everywhere.

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Privacy is dead, right?

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So the narrative goes.

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Well, I refuse to accept that narrative.

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And you should, too.

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We can't allow Jeff Bezos or the FBI

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to determine the boundaries
of our freedoms in the 21st century.

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If we live in a democracy,

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we are in the driver's seat,

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shaping our collective future.

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We are at a fork in the road right now.

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We can either continue
with business as usual,

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allowing governments to adopt and deploy
these technologies unchecked,

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in our communities, our streets
and our schools,

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or we can take bold action now

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to press pause on the government's use
of face surveillance,

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protect our privacy

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and to build a safer, freer future

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for all of us.

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Thank you.

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(Applause and cheers)