The use of face-scanning products by Californian law enforcement was firmly condemned during a press conference in support of AB 1215 that was spearheaded by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles).

If passed, the Body Camera Accountability Act would outlaw California law enforcement from adding face and other biometric surveillance technology to officer-worn body cameras. To back up their rhetoric, the two lawmakers brought more than words. They brought evidence.

The demonstration, which used the Jeff Bezos-owned technology giant’s product “Rekognition,” had similar results to a study completed last year that mistakenly identified 28 members of Congress as people who had previously been arrested for allegedly committing a crime.

Amid concerns that such tools could negatively discriminate against communities of color, Ting said the new study showed “this software is absolutely not ready for prime time.”

The assemblyman said: “By deploying facial recognition software in these body cameras, instead of a tool that is supposed to build bridges, it becomes a tool of surveillance.”

“While we can laugh about it as legislators it is no laughing matter if you are an individual who is trying to get a job, or get a home. If you get falsely accused of an arrest it could impact your ability to get employment, it absolutely impacts your ability to get housing,” Ting continued.

Jones-Sawyer, chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, said he had been misidentified by police in the past and warned that adding technology into the mix could make situations worse.

“I’ve heard of far too many cases of mistaken identity leading to arrests, in the worst cases death. This is without technology which threatens to automate mistaken identity and risk the health and safety of countless people of color,” Jones-Sawyer said.

“This fear is real. As I stand here before you now, there is a technology that would have you believe that the only duly-elected representative of the 59th assembly district is a criminal. We cannot risk subjecting civilians to technology that might falsely put them in real danger.”

There is no date set for AB 1215 to be heard on the Senate floor, but it is expected shortly after passing from the Senate Public Safety Committee, The Sacramento Bee reported this week.

The tech company continued: “As we’ve said many times in the past, when used with the recommended 99 percent confidence threshold and as one part of a human driven decision, facial recognition technology can be used for a long list of beneficial purposes, from assisting in the identification of criminals to helping find missing children to inhibiting human trafficking.”

“It is the wrong approach to impose a ban on… new technologies because they might be used by bad actors for nefarious purposes in the future. The world would be a very different place if we had restricted people from buying computers because it was possible to use that computer to do harm. The same can be said of thousands of technologies upon which we all rely each day.”

But two months ago, Axon, one of the largest bodycam makers in the U.S., which serves dozens of American law enforcement agencies, announced that it would not sell facial recognition software in its products because it was “not currently reliable enough to ethically justify its use”, as first reported by The New York Times.