Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Sounds The Alarm On Creeping Surveillance State
AOC warns about how facial recognition software can be abused by a suppressive government. John Iadarola breaks it down on The Damage Report.
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she is “absolutely concerned” that widespread facial recognition surveillance could eventually be used as a form of social control — and that Big Tech could have a hand in pushing such a scenario to arrive sooner. Speaking to the press after a House Oversight Committee hearing Wednesday, which aimed to examine the use of facial recognition technology by the government and commercial entities, Ocasio-Cortez said that facial recognition is “tied to the political reality that there is a global rise in authoritarianism and fascism.” “I don’t want to see an authoritarian surveillance state, whether it’s run by a government or whether it’s run by five corporations,” she said, referencing the five most recognizable American tech companies: Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. All five companies have worked on private and public facial recognition platforms, although one — Amazon — has been especially aggressive in marketing its own tool, Rekognition, to law enforcement agencies, from the Orlando Police Department to the FBI.”