 in the age of NSA spying and warrantless surveillance and these private companies selling your private information to third parties in order to better advertise to you. I think it's time that folks really come out and take a stand unequivocally against the next step that will absolutely erode the privacies that we have left. And that means we have to ban facial recognition software. We have to do it before it catches on anymore. And Jake Johnson in common dreams wrote a phenomenal article explaining how there are more and more organizations calling for an outright ban on facial recognition software because this isn't just a threat to our data and information but now private companies such as Amazon and Apple could use it to crack down on their employees and potentially use it to crack down on union bust. Because we already know that companies like Amazon they will monitor every little minute detail about their employees. So if they see someone in a warehouse that's talking to other coworkers that they don't usually converse with, if they are suddenly doing things that are a little bit unusual that they're too conspicuous Amazon will basically suspect that they're trying to unionize. And this isn't me saying this. This is what they said in their union busting video where they influenced their employees to look for things like this, look for signs that the coworkers that you work with are possibly trying to form a union. So this is all laid out in this article that I wanna share because I think it's really brilliant and I want more and more people to actually pay attention to this. Fight for the Future, the company who fought to save net neutrality in 2017. They've really led the charge on banning facial recognition software and I really think that this issue needs to be more important to leftists because if we don't stop this now then once the floodgates open and this is implemented everywhere then we lose that much more privacy. So as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams reports a coalition of more than 20 human rights organizations released an open letter Wednesday morning calling for a total ban on private and corporate use of facial recognition and invasive technology that the groups characterized as discriminatory and too dangerous to exist. While campaigners have typically focused on the civil liberties threats posed by government and law enforcement use of facial recognition the rights groups has lettered the man's that businesses be barred from using the technology as well warning that proliferation of face surveillance in the private sector would have serious privacy consequences for workers and consumers. In a world where private companies are already collecting our data, analyzing it and using it to manipulate us to make a profit we can't afford to naively believe that private entities can be trusted with our biometric information the letter reads. We call on all local, state and federal elected officials as well as corporate leaders to ban the use of facial recognition surveillance by private entities. The group cite several examples of corporations using facial recognition in ways that threaten workers rights including Amazon's requirement that delivery drivers consent to allowing the company's artificial intelligence equipped cameras to collect their biometric data and surveil their activity on the job. The coalition also points to Apple's facial recognition scans of its factory employees. These cases clearly show how private use of facial recognition by corporations, institutions and even individuals possess just as much of a threat to marginalized communities as government use, the letter reads. Corporations are already using facial recognition on workers in hiring to replace traditional time cards and to monitor workers' movements and productivity all of which particularly harm frontline workers and make them susceptible to harassment, exploitation and put their personal information at risk. Several cities across the United States have banned government use of facial recognition but just one, Portland, Oregon, has banned both public agencies and private corporations from wielding the technology to surveil workers and customers. The coalition held the Portland ban as a template for other lawmakers to address the concerns with private and corporate use of the technology. Facial recognition technology poses serious threats to personal freedom. Letting this tool of authoritarian control spread throughout the private sector has serious implications for worker organizing rights and heightens the risk of catastrophic biometric data breaches, Tracey Rosenberg, Advocacy Director at Oakland Privacy said in a statement Wednesday. And I think that the article speaks for itself. You know, as technology advances, we have to make sure that technology is used to the benefit of humanity, not to actually further suppress the rights and freedom of humanity. And it's already the case that other types of new technologies that are emerging is not helping humanity. I mean, drones are a huge example of that. I'm not talking about the ones that you can buy and fly personally. I'm talking about unmanned drones used in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. And at first you'd think, well, wow, if we can just conduct this robotic warfare where there's no human casualties, then, you know, that could be great. Maybe technology can revolutionize war so that way it's not bloody. But that's not what happened. We're just using those unmanned drones to terrorize countries and murder innocent civilians in these countries that we are illegally patrolling. It's against international law. And it's happening here at home with other types of new technology. I mean, if you've seen those really cool videos of the robot dogs from Boston Dynamics and the dancing robots and how they can do all these cool things, those aren't going to be used to the betterment of humanity. It's not going to be like, you know, the Jetsons where we have these robot servants who bring us coffees and wash our cars. It's going to be used to terrorize communities. Boston Dynamics already has one of their RoboDogs patrolling communities of color. I mean, this is what we're investing our money in as a country, making sure we further crack down on the civil rights and civil liberties of American citizens. So, I mean, technological advances, they're inevitable, right? As we learn more, we become more intelligent. We utilize different technology and information differently. There's going to be changes and we have to be capable of adapting. The traditional means of authoritarian control, you know, we can't just think about it in that antiquated way. We have to consider the new ways that governments will crack down on civil rights and civil liberties using technology, right? We have to adapt with the times because authoritarianism is adapting with the times and that means that the minute any new technology pops up and it's already being used against us, then we have to take action. We have to speak out before it's too late because again, once facial recognition software becomes widely implemented, you know, by the US government, by state and local governments, by private corporations, it'll be too late if it's widespread. So this is a phenomenal article by Jake Johnson. I would really encourage people to look into this because I didn't necessarily realize how dire the threat was posed by facial recognition software until I was able to grasp some of these concrete examples and it's just, it's unacceptable. We can't stand for it. We've got to ban facial recognition software. I'm 100% on board with this movement.