BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN)…..For now the just-approved ban that prohibits commercial entities – such as retailers and entertainment venues – from collecting biometric-created data in Erie County is on the books and likely to take effect later this year.<\/p>\n
For now.<\/p>\n
But, questions remain whether the ban will withstand any legal challenge.<\/p>\n
“They (the legislature) may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater,” said Jeff Rinaldo, a local security expert.<\/p>\n
The ban, championed by Legislator Lawrence Dupre, is rooted in customer’s rights and their rights to keep their shopping or business habits personal.<\/p>\n
With the AI evolution, companies have been collecting biometric-created data – like facial recognition, iris scans and fingerprints – and using it for a wide range of reasons, some under the guise of security and others to sell the information to third party entities.<\/p>\n
“It’s wrong,” Dupre says.<\/p>\n
Dupre’s bill, which calls for the outright ban, was approved by a 7-3 count with Dupre and fellow county lawmakers: Tim Meyers, Michael Kooshoian, John Gilmour, John Bargnesi Jr., Taisha St. Jean Tard and Jeanne Vinal backing the propposal. All are Democrats.<\/p>\n
Republican legislators John Mills, Frank Todaro and Lindsay Lorigo opposed the bill.<\/p>\n
“I just feel this was a bit of an over step,” Lorigo said.<\/p>\n
Legislator Chris Greene was absent.<\/p>\n
Lorigo had proposed not a ban but mandating anyone entity that used biometrics had to post it where all customers could see the notice. Lorigo’s proposal was not voted on by the lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Penalties under the ban could reach $1,000 per day.<\/p>\n
“The whole thing scares the hell out of me,” Mills said.<\/p>\n
There are questions about who can enforce and monitor if companies use biometrics data.<\/p>\n
Rinaldo thinks it may be hard while Dupre said the county has an effective enforcement system in place.<\/p>\n
“All we want to do is protect our residents,” Dupre said. “Who knows what they (companies) will do with this data.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN)…..For now the just-approved ban that prohibits commercial entities – such as retailers and entertainment venues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-181020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}