Legislation

Facial recognition technology can be life-threatening when in the hands of law enforcement. That's why the ACLU-MN is working to ban the use of facial recognition technology by government entities throughout Minnesota.  

THE PROBLEM

Studies show that facial recognition technology is biased. The error rate for white men is less than 1%, compared to 34.7% for darker-skinned women, according to a 2018 study published by MIT Media Lab. The criminal legal system already disproportionately targets and incarcerates people of color. Using technology that has documented problems correctly identifying people of color is dangerous. Facial recognition technology also: 

• Gives the authorities blanket and indiscriminate surveillance ability to track people.
• Can target and identify vulnerable groups such as immigrants and refugees.  
• Can be used to track your personal movements including going to abortion clinics or drug treatment. 
• Violates our constitutional rights. 

THE SOLUTION

The ACLU-MN supports banning the use of facial recognition technology by all government entities in Minnesota. More than a dozen large cities have banned the technology, including Minneapolis, Boston, and San Francisco. If Minnesota adopts a policy to ban the technology, our state would be a model for the rest of the nation as the first state to do so. 

Law enforcement can use these warrants to force companies to reveal who has searched for a specific word or phrase on their computers or cell phones, or who was in a certain area at a particular time. 

THE PROBLEM 

Warrants are supposed to be narrow, specific, and based on probable cause. Reverse warrants are the opposite – they allow the government to do widespread surveillance on everyone within a geographic area and/or timeframe, which violates the Fourth Amendment. The government can force tech companies such as Google to reveal our personal data based on words or phrases in search engines or our cell phone location data. 

• Reverse warrants subject large groups of innocent people to scrutiny by law enforcement. 
• While reverse warrants threaten everyone’s privacy, they can wrongly put innocent and vulnerable people including Black and Brown communities, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people and low-income people in police crosshairs. 
• Someone could become a suspect by simply driving home from work near the area where a crime was committed. 
• The warrants weaponize our intimate data against us. By reviewing private web searches, the government can gather deeply private information about our medical conditions, finances, sexual orientation, and religious beliefs. Police can identify people seeking abortions or gender-affirming care. 
• Judges are meant to act as a firewall when reviewing a digital warrant but often don’t fully understand the technology or how broad the scope of a reverse warrant is. 
• People should not have to fear that the government is peering over their shoulders into their personal lives while on their phones or computers.

THE SOLUTION

The ACLU-MN supports a bill to ban reverse warrants.

Auto insurance premiums can be highly discriminatory and disproportionately impact low-income Minnesotans. Insurance companies often charge higher auto insurance premiums based on factors unrelated to driving, such as credit score, education level, and marital status.

Police can legally take money, cars, and other items – even if the owner isn’t charged or convicted. This gives law enforcement the appearance of policing for profit. It’s up to state legislators to raise and appropriate all funds, not law enforcement. That’s why the ACLU-MN is working to reform civil forfeiture in Minnesota.

THE PROBLEM  

Today, seizures by police are often motivated by profit rather than crime prevention. In Minnesota, law enforcement can keep profits from selling vehicles and other seized property. In 2022 alone, state law enforcement reported more than $6.6 million in proceeds from forfeiture. Minnesota received another $1.9 million from forfeitures by the federal government. 
While legislators have made important reforms to our forfeiture system, those changes don’t go far enough. The system is overly complicated and costly. 

Because the forfeiture is handled in civil court rather than criminal court, people have to hire a separate attorney to try to get their property back. That costs $3,000 on average. About 80% of people don’t even try to get their property back because they simply can’t afford it. Forfeiture disproportionately harms low-income people who may lose their rent payment or the only car their family owns. 

THE SOLUTION

The solution is to pass this bill to simplify forfeiture at the state level into one criminal process. This law would: 

• End civil forfeiture and replace it with criminal forfeiture 
• Exempt cash under $500 and vehicles worth less than $5,000 from seizure and forfeitures. 
• Create a prompt post-seizure hearing 
• Pay attorney’s fees if the property owner prevails

Because of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, prosecutors do not have efficient access to information that they may be obligated by the federal and state constitutions to disclose to the defense to ensure a defendant’s due process right to a fair trial.