Privacy advocates used Amazon’s facial recognition to scan thousands of random faces around Capitol Hill in Washington DC to highlight the dangers of this technologies surveillance capabilities.

While walking around, the team found the facial recognition successfully identified a congressman, but also claimed to spot Roy Orbison – an American singer who died in 1988.

The demonstration was a message to Congress to ban the technology, there’s no law preventing people from scanning your face without your consent anytime you step out in public.

A small group of activists walked outside and inside Capitol Hill wearing hazmat suits and smartphones strapped to their heads on Thursday to protest the use of facial recognition on the public without consent.

Using Rekognition, Amazon’s commercially available facial recognition software, the activists scanned nearly 14,000 faces that they cross-checked with a database to see if anyone could be identified.

But the purpose of this protest is to have lawmakers ban the technology.

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Privacy advocates used Amazon’s facial recognition to scan thousands of random faces around Capitol Hill in Washington DC to highlight the dangers of this technologies surveillance capabilities

Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, the group involved in the demonstration, said: ‘This should probably be illegal, but until Congress takes action to ban facial recognition surveillance, it’s terrifyingly easy for anyone –a government agent, a corporation, or just a creepy stalker – to conduct biometric monitoring and violate basic rights at a massive scale.

The activists did not ask for permission to scan people’s faces in public, however their suits sported a small note that read ‘ Facial recognition in progress’.

The team walked around the Rayburn office building of the House of Representatives, scanning thousands of people’s faces – and live streamed the entire thing.

The technology correctly recognized California Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, but it ‘thought’ it saw seven known journalists and 25 Amazon Lobbyists that the crew had pre-loaded to the database prior to the event.

While walking around, the team found the facial recognition successfully identified a congressman, but also claimed to spot Roy Orbison – an American singer who died in 1988

Using Rekognition, Amazon’s commercially available facial recognition software, the activists scanned nearly 14,000 faces that they cross-checked with a database to see if anyone could be identified

The software also thought it spotted and the late Roy Orbison, revealing another danger – that the technology can be wrong.

‘In our case, it’s easy to laugh when the software thinks a member of our team is an Amazon lobbyist, or when it thinks a random staffer is a prominent journalist,’ Fight for the Freedom explained on its website.

‘But law enforcement agencies are using flawed facial recognition software right now — and the potential harm of a mismatch is staggering.’

Senators have recently introduced a bill regarding facial recognition, but Fight for the Freedom believes it does not address the type of legislation that is needed to prevent invasive facial recognition

‘It could land an innocent person in prison, or worse. And current facial recognition algorithms exhibit systemic racial bias, exacerbating existing forms of discrimination in our criminal justice system.’

Senators have recently introduced a bill regarding facial recognition, but Fight for the Freedom believes it does not address the type of legislation that is needed to prevent invasive facial recognition.

‘We need an immediate ban on law enforcement and government use of face surveillance, and should urgently and severely limit its use for private and commercial purposes,’ Greer said.