Recognizable Faces Disappear From Facial Recognition Meetings

Facing "industry stakeholders [that] were unable to agree on any concrete cenario" in which affirmative consent should be obtained from individuals before employing facial recognition technologies, nine consumer advocacy organizations made an about-face and withdrew from the multistakeholder process coordinated by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration ("NTIA"). These organizations, which include the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated that based on the latest multistakeholder meeting earlier this month they believe the process is not likely to lead to a set of rules with adequate protections for consumers.

NTIA's multistakeholder process began in December 2013 as a means of developing a voluntary, enforceable code of conduct to apply the White House's Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights to facial recognition technologies. This process also followed a workshop and report from the Federal