Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan declared on Tuesday that the state's government has ordered the DMV to halt a face recognition programme, pending legal review, as it violates state law.Donovan's office said the program does not comply with Act 154, which states in part that the DMV “shall not implement any procedures or processes for identifying applicants ߪ that involve the use of biometric identifiers.”Records show the program had been in use since at least late 2012.The move came after the Vermont Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union outlined concerns about the program, which uses facial recognition technology to scan the DMV database of more than 700,000 individuals.ACLU attorney Jay Diaz said the program is in violation of a Vermont law that prohibits using biometrics to identify license applicants.The DMV said it used software that collected and scanned thousands of driver's license images to detect fraudulent applications. However, records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont showed that the agency also shared information from the database with federal and out-of-state law enforcement agencies.In an interview Tuesday, Donovan said his office made its decision after researching the statute prohibiting biometrics, including listening to the original legislative testimony from the DMV commissioner at the time, Bonnie Rutledge. “Consistent with Vermont, we always put a premium on privacy,” Donovan said. “I think this is a great example of balancing public safety with privacy rights.”In a news release, ACLU staff attorney Jay Diaz said the organization is glad the attorney general “agrees that DMV's facial recognition program is patently illegal.””This was another instance of mission creep,” Diaz said in an interview Tuesday, referring to the revelation that the DMV's biometric technology was used for more than fraud investigations. “The DMV especially has a recent history of flouting state law and failing to protect people's civil and constitutional rights.”
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