After more than a year of discussions, all nine privacy advocates have stormed out of a government-organized “ multi-stakeholder process ” to sort out details around the best practices for facial recognition technology.

The sticking point was that corporations apparently refused to concede that there was any scenario during which a person’s consent to scan their face was needed.

“When we came in [last] Thursday, [we proposed] that in general, there will be exceptions, but the default for identifying unknown people is that you get permission before you identify them using facial recognition,” Alvaro Bedoya, one of the nine participating advocates and a law professor at Georgetown University, told Ars. “Not a single trade association or company would agree with that premise. That’s remarkable. Google is opt-in on facial recognition, Microsoft is opt-in on facial recognition, Facebook isn’t, but they’ve gotten sued and also had to turn it off in Europe. So not only does it go against state law, it goes against industry practice. Consumers deserve more.”

Bedoya is specifically referring to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). Facebook was sued in April 2015 by a Chicago man, alleging that he and others in Illinois had their rights violated by Facebook as they did not give their express permission for facial recognition. Texas also has a similar law on the books.

As the privacy group wrote in a statement released late Monday evening:

At a base minimum, people should be able to walk down a public street without fear that companies they’ve never heard of are tracking their every movement—and identifying them by name—using facial recognition technology. Unfortunately, we have been unable to obtain agreement even with that basic, specific premise. The position that companies never need to ask permission to use biometric identification is at odds with consumer expectations, current industry practices, as well as existing state law.

We can't do opt-in because you might be a shoplifter

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The process, which was organized by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), specifically aims “to develop a voluntary, enforceable code of conduct that specifies how the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights applies to facial recognition technology in the commercial context.”

The talks began in February 2014 in Washington, DC and include representatives from tech industry and retail lobby groups, as well as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Ars contacted Facebook and a number of the trade groups, most of which did not immediately respond.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association’s (CCIA) policy counsel, Bijan Madhani, told Ars that the group still believes discussions will “ultimately be beneficial to consumers.”

"CCIA is committed to continued participation in the NTIA multi-stakeholder process on facial recognition technologies,” he said in a statement. “Such tools are being employed in a wide range of environments for a variety of uses. Depending on the context and purpose, different implementations of facial recognition technologies should offer differing levels of control to individuals. There are circumstances where permission prior to participation in a facial recognition system makes a great deal of sense, and others where it does not."

When Ars asked Madhani to better articulate why, generally speaking, it does not make sense to seek consumer permission before conducting a facial scan, he outlined a scenario whereby a store might want to use facial recognition against a suspected shoplifter.

“Certain companies feel like their facial recognition provides more benefits to consumers if it provides a benign extension of their existing services,” he said.

Onward

Meanwhile, in a statement e-mailed to Ars, the NTIA said that the series of meetings, which remain open to the public, will continue.

“NTIA is disappointed that some stakeholders have chosen to stop participating in our multi-stakeholder engagement process regarding privacy and commercial facial recognition technology,” Juliana Gruenwald, an NTIA spokeswoman, wrote. “Up to this point, the process has made good progress as many stakeholders, including privacy advocates, have made substantial, constructive contributions to the group’s work. A substantial number of stakeholders want to continue the process and are establishing a working group that will tackle some of the thorniest privacy topics concerning facial recognition technology. The process is the strongest when all interested parties participate and are willing to engage on all issues. NTIA will continue to facilitate meetings on this topic for those stakeholders who want to participate.”