Motorola Warns Customers To "Consult Your Legal Advisor" Over Avigilon Appearance Search

Motorola sent a letter to customers "encouraging" them to "consult your legal advisor" over the legality of Avigilon Appearance Search.

This comes as municipalities are ramping up legal restrictions against facial recognition and other video analysis technology, e.g., IPVM's recent coverage - 17 US Cities Boycotting Products That Include Facial Recognition.

Inside this note, we examine Motorola's letter, Motorola's response to IPVM, and how Avigilon Appearance Search may or may not be regulated.

Motorola Letter

On August 30th, Motorola sent a 2 paragraph 'advisory notice' on Avigilon appearance search directing customers to figure out, with their legal advisors, what legal risks they faced in their locations:

We encourage Avigilon customers to review their local and state laws carefully to assess if such laws impact their deployment and application of Avigilon Appearance Search. If you are in an area where state or local laws potentially may impact your use of Avigilon Appearance Search, please consult your legal advisor to determine how those laws may affect you.

Motorola did not cite any specific laws.

The letter characterized Appearance Search as generating "appearance signature":

Avigilon Appearance Search operates by having an analytics service on the server generate "appearance signatures" for images of vehicles, people and faces sent by the connected cameras, or extracted from live video by an analytics-enabled appliance (such as the Avigilon AI NVR, or the Avigilon AI Appliance).

The risks are not just with local governments directly but with companies trying to sue, Motorola went on to explain:

It is possible that a regulator or a plaintiff attempting to assert a claimunder certain state or local laws could argue that these appearance signatures include biometric data covered by those laws.

Indeed, such lawsuits are rising in Motorola's home state of Illinois, which has the Biometrics Information Privacy Act.

Motorola concluded by saying the functionality could be disabled:

If it is necessary or desirable to do so, Avigilon Appearance Searchmay be disabled either on a camera-by-camera basis or system-wide, simply by uninstalling the analytics service from each of the Windows based servers in your site. For analytics-enabled appliances, uninstalling the analytics service is not possible, but disabling Avigilon Appearance Search on all cameras achieves the same result.

Response No Comment On Illinois

Motorola refused to comment to IPVM on whether the Illinois Biometrics Information Privacy Act impacts or covers the use of Avigilon Appearance Search.

Morotola has effectively put the onus of every Avigilon dealer and customer to figure out if they are breaking the law. This does not mean that Motorola will not be sued but it does mean that dealers and customers cannot rely on assurances from their manufacturer.

Defining "Biometrics"

Facial recognition is clearly a biometric as are unique characteristics like retina scans or fingerprints.

The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act clearly states face geometry is a "biometric identifier":

"Biometric identifier" means a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or scan of hand or face geometry. Biometric identifiers do not include writing samples, written signatures, photographs, human biological samples used for valid scientific testing or screening, demographic data, tattoo descriptions, or physical descriptions such as height, weight, hair color, or eye color.

Further, the BIPA says biometrics are biologically unique to individuals and cannot be changed:

Biometrics are unlike other unique identifiers that are used to access finances or other sensitive information. For example, social security numbers, when compromised, can be changed. Biometrics, however, are biologically unique to the individual; therefore, once compromised, the individual has no recourse, is at heightened risk for identity theft, and is likely to withdraw from biometric-facilitated transactions.

The Department of Homeland Security also classifies biometrics as "unique":

Biometrics are unique physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, that can be used for automated recognition.

Facial Recognition Vs Appearance Search

Virtually everyone understands and recognizes facial recognition is a biometric (except for Verkada). Indeed, Motorola makes no claim about its Avigilon facial recognition offering in this letter.

The more difficult question is whether Appearance Search and the "appearance signatures" that it creates is a biometric. However, Avigilon's Appearance Search typically uses faces to generate results.

In this case, because faces are used, Appearance Search is likely biometrics. See IPVM's test of Avigilon Appearance Search, which shows the program using faces for identification:

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