Why I Walked Out of Facial Recognition Negotiations

[Commentary] On June 16, consumer privacy advocates walked out of talks to set voluntary rules for companies that use facial recognition technology. They explained that they were withdrawing from the talks because industry would not agree to critical privacy protections. I was one of those advocates.

There is a growing divide in Americans’ right to privacy. As checks strengthen on government surveillance, tech companies are evading even basic limits on their ability to collect, share, and monetize your data. At the heart of this divide is an increasingly formidable force: industry lobbying. The fact is, there is an established business standard in favor of consumer choice. So why did companies reject a voluntary rule to codify it? I believe it had to do with the fact that most of the industry representatives in the room didn’t work for companies. Most of them came from industry associations -- entities that are financed by tech companies, advertisers, and retailers to lobby for their interests but are legally separate from their backers. The end result is a lobbying apparatus that is untethered from the realities of many of the businesses that it serves. You may have heard of “yes men.” In Washington we have “no men”: industry lobbyists whose primary purpose is to stop attempts to regulate their members’ products and services, and who have no product or brand that could be hurt by their efforts. The tech industry can increasingly afford a lot of no men.

[Alvaro Bedoya is the founding executive director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law]