In the News

Today, California Congressman Jimmy Gomez and Washington Senator Patty Murray will introduce the Jeanette Acosta Invest in Women’s Health Act of 2019. Named after Jeannette Acosta, a former congressional employee who passed away after treatment for cervical cancer in 2017, the bill would create new grants to provide increased access to preventative and life-saving screenings for cancers… Read more »

A growing debate over facial recognition continues this week as Congress holds it’s second hearing Tuesday and as some New York schools plan to implement the technology to improve safety. California has been an adamant opponent against the technology, and now a Los Angeles congressman is leading the fight against it. “First, facial recognition is something that’s been around for a number… Read more »

In July 2018, the ACLU tested Amazon’s Rekognition software and found “the software incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress, identifying them as other people who have been arrested for a crime.” One of the members mismatched was Representative Jimmy Gomez, a member of the committee. He asked Del Greco about biases in the technology, and she said FBI personnel are not trained on… Read more »

LONDON- An attempted shareholder revolt over Amazon’s sale of facial recognition technology to the police mustered less than 3% of votes cast at the firm’s annual general meeting. The tally was revealed in a corporate filing.The tech firm had said it was aware of civil rights concerns but had not received any reports of law enforcement clients misusing its Rekognition tool. Even so, the… Read more »

In response to the introduction of H.Res 404 – commemorating the service of Korean and Korean-American veterans of the Vietnam War – Congressman Jimmy Gomez (CA-34) issued the following statement: “Too often, the commitment of Korean and Korean American Vietnam War veterans has gone unnoticed. Neglecting the important role these servicemembers played is not only an affront to their… Read more »

An attempted shareholder revolt over Amazon's sale of facial recognition technology to the police mustered less than 3% of votes cast at the firm's annual general meeting. The tally was revealed in a corporate filing. The tech firm had said it was aware of civil rights concerns but had not received any reports of law enforcement clients misusing its Rekognition tool. Even so,… Read more »

At the same time, facial recognition software is currently the subject of intense national scrutiny. Facial recognition regulation received bipartisan support in a Congressional hearing Wednesday, achieving the rare feat of uniting progressives like Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and a number of conservative Republicans, who agreed that a national moratorium on the use of facial… Read more »

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) who has been spearheading the conversation on regulating facial recognition technology on Capitol Hill, told Power Up that Amazon is “avoiding responsibility” when it comes to answering crucial questions of the surveillance technology. (Amazon owner Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) “We don't even know if Amazon is exporting the use of facial… Read more »

"I just got word that the shareholders did not end up passing a ban on the sale of Rekognition," Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., said at the hearing. "That just means that it's more important that Congress acts." Full Article Read more »

Rep. Jimmy Gomez, one of the most vocal members of Congress when it comes to the issue of facial recognition, said his office has met with Amazon over civil rights concerns of its facial recognition platform nine times. The result, which he testified to during the hearing, was that his “concerns only grow day by day.” Gomez told BuzzFeed News in an interview that his office had made… Read more »