Voluntary ‘best practices’ guidelines legitimize unconsented facial recognition by dressing it in toothless language

Evidence

The talks continued without the advocates, and in 2016 the NTIA issued its “Privacy Best Practice Recommendations for Commercial Facial Recognition Use.” The guidelines should be understood as the “best” for the surveillance capitalists but as the “worst” for everyone else. In the language of these guidelines, the tech companies, retailers, and others determined to chase surveillance revenues are simply “encouraged” to make their policies on facial recognition “available to consumers, in a reasonable manner.…” Where companies impose facial recognition on a physical location, they are “encouraged” to provide “notice” to consumers. Rendition operations are tacitly accorded legitimacy, not only in the lack of contest, but because they stand as the immovable facts draped in the cheap garlands of toothless “best practices.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 791

Categorization

• XREF: This is a concrete instance of regulatory capture through voluntary frameworks — connects to the broader pattern in surveillance-capitalism scholarship on how tech companies deflect mandatory regulation. — connects to: Facial recognition fails because training data overrepresents White faces. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1152; Facial recognition fails on darker faces because of biased training data; Recognition without redistributive power fails to secure freedom for marginalized groups — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 163 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Recognition without redistributive power fails to secure freedom for marginalized groups #corroborates (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 163
• Facial recognition fails because training data overrepresents White faces. #qualifies (0.75) — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1152
• Facial recognition fails on darker faces because of biased training data #qualifies (0.75)
• Facial rendition is the foundational operation surveillance capitalism cannot survive without #responds-to (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 789