We have witnessed the death and devastation that COVID-19 has brought to millions of people across the country this past year. The pandemic revealed the flaws and cracks in our social safety net and the gaps in law and policy that left too many of us unprotected. At the same time, the pandemic has exposed, more clearly than ever, the racial inequities and disparities that exist at every level of our society. COVID’s disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people — especially women of color — has shocked our national conscience, as it should. But it should come as no surprise that our current reality is a symptom of the deeply rooted systemic racism we know has long existed but have not fully confronted. The ACLU has prioritized systemic equity, and the COVID relief bill is certainly a vehicle for advancing these goals.

The COVID relief bill is now moving through the House and will reach the Senate soon. The expectation is that it will go to President Biden in mid-March. The bill takes important steps to address the spread and impact of the coronavirus but it also provides another opportunity to address some of the policies and practices that have harmed Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. Congress can begin this critical racial justice work by taking the following actions:

Our country is facing a looming mass eviction crisis with stark racial and gender disparities. Black and Latinx households have been hit significantly harder by COVID-19, and in turn, they have been twice as likely as white tenants to report that they have little to no ability to make rent each month. Without immediate action by the federal government, households of color, particularly Black women-led households, will be left to weather this storm on their own. The harms of eviction run deep. Having an eviction on your record results in blacklisting, as many landlords will not even consider an applicant with a prior eviction filing, even if they won their case. Eviction records follow people for years, stigmatizing already vulnerable groups and blocking them from housing opportunities — a problem that the pandemic has only worsened.

The ACLU is calling for an extension and expansion of the federal eviction moratorium to make it fully effective for tenants across the country; funding for emergency rental assistance to cover the many months of rent payments that the most vulnerable, low-income tenants have been unable to make during the pandemic; and funding for right to counsel programs to address the reality that eviction court proceedings are skewed to favor landlords and evict people from their homes.

The moratorium, rental assistance and right to counsel are the three legs of the tenant protection stool, and all three are essential to keeping people housed during the pandemic and preventing massive waves of evictions afterward.

The pandemic has revealed more starkly than ever how dangerous life in an institution can be for people with disabilities and older adults. Although nursing homes and other congregate settings have less than 1 percent of the country’s population, they comprised almost 40 percent of COVID deaths. What is needed now more than ever is dedicated funding for Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) which would allow people with disabilities and seniors to live in their own homes and communities instead of in institutions. This is not just a moral imperative but also a matter of civil rights.

At the same time, Congress must act to support and sustain the direct care workforce, predominantly Black and Brown women, who at great risk to themselves, their families, and their communities, show up to care for and assist vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities in their own homes. The work they do allows people with disabilities and seniors to stay safe at home, but these critical workers still lack basic protective equipment, access to paid leave, and hazard pay. These deficiencies, along with low wages, is destabilizing for workers and their families and for the people with disabilities who rely on their services. Direct care workers have been at the frontlines of the pandemic but they have been largely left out of the national conversation. That must change.

Congress is poised, finally, to address the needs of workers, seniors, and people with disabilities by including HCBS funding in the next COVID relief package. The bill would provide dedicated funding for several critical efforts, including reducing the wait list for home and community-based services and providing hazard pay, paid leave, and PPE for home health care workers and direct support professionals.

Nationwide, there are approximately 19.8 million “essential” immigrant workers, risking their lives under constant threat of exposure. There are 1.7 million immigrant medical and health care workers caring for COVID-19 patients and 27,000 DACA recipients working as doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Yet, legislation consistently leaves tens of millions of people out of testing and treatment, including vaccines.

Many of these people are Black and Brown, including immigrants from green card holders and DACA recipients to those without immigration status. While providing funds to states for services is critical, it is not enough on its own. Testing and treatment, including vaccines, must be covered under emergency Medicaid. This is in line with the will of people: 68 percent of Americans believe that the federal government has an obligation to provide medical care to undocumented immigrants with COVID-19.

The Biden administration must clarify that states can and should cover COVID-related care, including testing, treatment, and vaccines, under emergency Medicaid so that tens of millions of people are not left out. Patchwork solutions will not address this pandemic. This pandemic affects all of us, and so must our national response. Our lives depend on it.

The ACLU supports Congress’s plan to include over $7 billion in funding for an Emergency Broadband Connectivity Fund that will help elementary and secondary students afford internet access service and connected devices in the upcoming COVID relief package. It represents a meaningful step toward addressing the growing gap between students who have internet access at home and computers to connect during this crisis, and those who do not. This gap is more pronounced for Black, Latinx, and lower income households, and we are pleased that Congress plans to provide funds that will help these children attend school, connect with their teachers and classmates, and complete their schoolwork.

But Congress must do more to close the digital divide for all people. In the last relief package, Congress created the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB), which will provide a discount up to $50 ($75 on Tribal land) for low income families to afford broadband access and connected devices. Unfortunately, given the size of the need for this benefit, the funding set aside for the EBB could run out quickly. For that reason, in addition to funding the proposed Emergency Broadband Connectivity Fund, Congress also should allocate additional funds to the EBB sufficient to last until a bridge can be built to keep all families connected even after the program ends.

The Child Tax Credit (CTC) provisions in the latest COVID-relief bill create a significant, one-year enhancement to the credit. First, it makes the CTC fully refundable. This is crucial. Currently, if a parent does not earn enough, their children are ineligible for the credit — even though the purpose of the credit is to help our most vulnerable children. As a result, approximately three-quarters of white and Asian children are eligible for the full CTC, compared to only about half of Black and Hispanic children. Second, the enhancement increases the maximum credit from to $2,000 per child ages 0-16 to $3,600 for kids under 6 and $3,000 for kids 6-17. Third, the new CTC creates an advanced monthly payment option, so families can receive monthly checks starting July 1.

In total, these changes would nearly triple the poverty-fighting effects of the current CTC, lifting 4 million children out of poverty, and cut deep child poverty in half. The impacts on racial disparities are even more dramatic: These changes would cut poverty for Black children by 52 percent, Hispanic children by 45 percent, and Indigenous children by 61 percent. These expansions also improve children’s long term outcomes. The research is clear: Additional income has long term benefits for children’s educational attainment, employment, and health.

This is an investment in our nation’s future. Children should not just be the private responsibility of their parents, but that as a society we have a responsibility to ensure the next generation has the opportunity to fulfill their potential. These provisions are a down payment on ending child poverty for all children, and could lead to the largest reduction in child poverty rates in decades. More must be done to ensure all children, especially immigrant children and children in hard to reach populations, qualify and are made aware of their new benefits. And ultimately, we must make these hard won gains permanent in subsequent legislation this year.

Face recognition and other forms of biometric identification technologies are a threat to core constitutional rights and have a disturbing record of racial bias and inaccuracy that endangers people of color and other marginalized groups. In keeping with President Biden’s commitment to racial equity and civil liberties for all, he must take immediate action to halt the use and funding of these dangerous technologies by the federal government.

Today, we are calling on Biden to impose a federal moratorium on face recognition technology and prevent state and local governments from using federal funds to purchase it. More than 35 organizations and individuals — including Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Amnesty International, among others — join us in a coalition letter urging swift executive action.

Study after study has revealed the flaws of face recognition technology. In 2018, an MIT research team led by doctoral candidate Joy Buolamwini (who also cosigned our letter) found alarming racial and gender disparities in commercial face recognition systems, including Amazon’s Rekognition software. While the systems were relatively accurate when analyzing the faces of white men, they failed up to one in three times when classifying the faces of Black women. Subsequent studies confirmed these findings, including a study from the federal government itself.

These flaws pose a particular threat to people of color, women, transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and other marginalized groups who are more likely to be misidentified — and bear the consequences. Not even members of Congress are safe — when the ACLU ran a test on Rekognition, it falsely matched 28 members of Congress with a mug-shot database, with false matches disproportionately affecting lawmakers of color.

So what happens when a face recognition system falsely matches somebody to a photo in a database? We saw the result last year, when Detroit police arrested a Black man, Robert Williams, because a face recognition tool had returned a false match. While the police later acknowledged the mistake, the damage was already done. Williams had been arrested on his own front lawn, in front of his wife and two young daughters. He had to spend 30 hours in a jail cell, accused by an algorithm of a crime he didn’t commit. On the arrest, Williams said, “How does one explain to two young girls that the computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?”

%3Ciframe%20class%3D%22media-youtube-player%22%20width%3D%22580%22%20height%3D%22324%22%20title%3D%22What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube-nocookie.com%2Fembed%2F111zsenxTcw%3Fwmode%3Dopaque%26amp%3Bcontrols%3D1%26amp%3Bmodestbranding%3D1%26amp%3Brel%3D0%26amp%3Bshowinfo%3D0%26amp%3Bcolor%3Dwhite%26autoplay%3D1%26version%3D3%26playsinline%3D1%22%20name%3D%22What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%22%20frameborder%3D%220%22%20allowfullscreen%3D%22%22%20id%3D%22What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%22%20allow%3D%22autoplay%22%3EVideo%20of%20What%20Happens%20When%20Face%20Recognition%20Turns%20Up%20a%20False%20Match%3F%3C%2Fiframe%3E

Privacy statement. This embed will serve content from youtube-nocookie.com.

We know of at least two more Black men who were misidentified and falsely arrested due to face recognition technology. However, the real number of victims is unknown because of an unacceptable lack of transparency from the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, which have been using this technology for years without explicit authorization or guidance. But government use of face recognition technology goes far beyond law enforcement. We’re seeing it deployed in schools and public housing developments — where its flaws and biases threaten to disproportionately harm Black and Brown people in settings already wrought with racial discrimination and inequality.

Even if face recognition technology was perfectly accurate, it would still be a nightmare for civil liberties. Face recognition technology gives governments, companies, and individuals the power to spy on us wherever we go — tracking our faces at protests, political rallies, places of worship, family planning clinics, substance abuse treatment centers, and more. When combined with existing networks of surveillance cameras dotting our urban and suburban landscapes, face recognition algorithms could enable governments to track the public movements, habits, and associations of all people at all times without any justification or suspicion of wronging — merely with the push of a button.

Never before has the government possessed a surveillance tool as dangerous as face recognition technology. If the government can track us everywhere we go, we lose our freedom to speak our minds, freely criticize the government, pray to the god we want, and access health care in private. These are not hypothetical dangers: Face recognition technology is currently being used to conduct precisely this kind of dystopian monitoring in China.

Despite these glaring concerns, U.S. federal agencies have been using face recognition technology for nearly two decades — in secret and absent any regulation or oversight. The fight has gone on just as long. The ACLU and thousands of our supporters have been calling on Congress for years to stop law enforcement use of face recognition, and we have sued for information about its use by the FBI, DEA, ICE, and CBP. We’ve also taken on private companies for their role in facilitating this dangerous technology, including by suing Clearview AI for violating an Illinois biometric privacy law.

We have made progress over the years: In 2020, during the wave of protests against police brutality, we led a coalition of more than 80 civil rights groups calling on Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to stop selling face recognition technology to law enforcement. Those companies have now stopped or paused sales to law enforcement. Fifteen municipalities across the country have banned government use of face recognition technology, including Boston, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California and Jackson, Mississippi. The State of Vermont has done the same. And California has halted the use of facial recognition and biometric technology in connection with police body cameras.

We have a chance with the new administration to set a powerful new precedent on face recognition technology. President Biden must make his administration a major turning point, and make the U.S. a leader in the world, by placing a moratorium on government use of face recognition technology.

The Trump Department of Justice spent its final days putting thousands of people at greater risk of catching COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic. On Jan. 15, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo arguing the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) will be legally obligated to return thousands of people released on home confinement back to federal prisons while the pandemic still ravages correctional facilities. With the memo’s March return date growing closer — and public health officials indicating that we will not be out of the pandemic woods by then — the Biden administration must take swift action. Not only must the administration ensure that those who have been released can stay out of these deadly facilities, they must also expand the program by increasing the number of people released to home confinement, the use of clemency, and the commutation of sentences.

When Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, last March, it included a mandate to decrease federal incarceration to stop the spread of the virus. The Trump administration, however, dragged its feet in response, creating complex and changing guidelines for consideration for release, making entire groups of people ineligible for release due to their convictions and/or criminal history, regardless of their health status, and even arguing that some people would be safer in federal prisons.

However, with mounting pressure from Congress, federal public defenders, and advocacy organizations, more than 7,000 people have been sent to home confinement. While this is only a small portion of people in federal prisons, any decrease in prison population is vital given the increased dangers of incarceration during a pandemic.

In spite of these risks, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel’s Jan. 15 memo argued that home confinement should end for those 7,000 people when the CARES Act runs out in March. The memo claimed that these releases can occur “only during the Act’s covered emergency period,” and the BOP’s authority “does not provide an alternative basis for authorizing continued home confinement.” This is wrong as a matter of both law and morality. In terms of law, home confinement is a standard practice in federal prisons that predates the COVID-19 pandemic. The BOP had this authority long before the CARES Act, most recently updating its standards in 2019. People are only pulled back into facilities from home confinement if they have violated the rules of the program. There is nothing in the CARES Act that changes this procedure, and the act doesn’t provide its own grounds for recall from home confinement. In terms of morality, decreasing the BOP’s population will save lives, both of those inside of federal prisons and those outside of them.

People in prisons, jails, and detention centers have been among those hit hardest by the pandemic. As of December, one in every five people in state and federal prisons in the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus. This rate is more than four times as high as in the general population, and the limited data available for the BOP suggests the rate is even worse for people in those facilities. These shocking rates are likely an understatement of the true scope. ACLU lawsuits against local jails, state and federal prisons, and federal detention facilities have repeatedly demanded more testing, along with increased releases and improved health care. At least 2,305 incarcerated people and 145 corrections staff have already died from COVID-19, a horrific and unacceptable death toll.

Outbreaks in these facilities also endanger other members of the communities they are located in, as staff carry the virus with them in and out of work. Studies in Chicago and Milwaukee have empirically shown what we already know: Every member of our communities must be protected to ensure the end of this pandemic. Releasing people from these prisons and jails is a vital tool to fight COVID-19. It not only puts those released in a safer situation, it also allows people who are still inside to more easily socially distance, reducing the risk for everyone at the facility and in the surrounding area.

The Biden administration must take swift action not only to make sure the people who are out on home confinement can stay out, but also to ensure more people can be released from federal facilities. Committing to no longer use private prisons was a great first step toward changing the federal prison system, but no prison, jail, or detention center is safe during a pandemic.

We know fighting COVID-19 is a top priority for the Biden administration, and stopping the virus in the places it’s spreading most rapidly and dangerously is a critical public health approach. The Biden administration, therefore, shouldn’t just ensure the reversal of the Trump administration’s vindictive policies by rescinding the policies in Trump’s memo — it must use its power to release more people to home confinement, and use compassionate release and clemency to save lives. It makes sense for the thousands of people in danger in those facilities and for finally ending this pandemic.