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.

THE BILL

Students deserve respectful and inclusive learning environments that value their gender identity and gender expression. The ACLU-MN supports legislation to ensure students who are transgender and gender nonconforming are treated with dignity and have the full educational experience every child deserves. 

THE PROBLEM

Public schools are legally required to protect all students from harassment. Yet schools have denied transgender and gender-nonconforming students access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports and other extracurricular activities that match their identities. Staff have refused to use students’ preferred names and pronouns. 

This singles out trans and gender-nonconforming students and leads to bullying and stigmatization, which harms kids. In Minnesota, the Trevor Project’s 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health found that: 

• 52% of trans and nonbinary students considered suicide in the previous year
• 37% were physically harmed or threatened
• 73% have experienced discrimination
• 75% experienced anxiety

THE SOLUTION

Pass legislation that requires schools to provide trans and gender-nonconforming students with a safe and inclusive education that includes: 

• The right to access bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity
• The right to participate in sports and other school activities in accordance with their identity
• The right to have school staff use their preferred names and pronouns
• No outing of students to parents. 

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

In many cases, qualified immunity shields local, state and federal officials from being sued when they’ve harmed individuals. Since qualified immunity was created by the federal courts, only the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress can change it. But the Minnesota Legislature has the power to fix the issue another way.

THE PROBLEM 

Qualified immunity makes it nearly impossible for individuals to sue public officials by requiring proof that they violated “clearly established law.” It makes it difficult for individuals whose rights were violated by public officials to sue them – the doctrine requires proof an agency or officer violated “clearly established law.” The resulting lack of accountability perpetuates misconduct and harm. 

• Qualified immunity creates an environment where government agents, including police, may feel empowered to violate people’s rights because they face few consequences. 
• Under qualified immunity, lives can be taken with impunity. 
• It erodes trust, relationships with the community, and the criminal legal system’s credibility.

THE SOLUTION 

Qualified immunity reform would change Minnesota law to make it easier for people to sue government agencies and officials in state court when their rights are violated here. Since qualified immunity makes it hard to sue the government in federal court for violating our rights, this reform would create a pathway to do so in our state courts instead.