Facial Recognition Technology and Public Security in Brazilian Capitals: Issues and Problematizations

Abstract

Based on the identification and analysis of proposals presented by municipal public administrators, this paper notes the relationship between digital technologies and general security in Brazil. The government programs prepared by the current mayors of all capitals of the country in the last municipal election (2020), and filed with the Superior Electoral Court, were selected as a research corpus. As the main results of the analysis, we lay out the following: the forecast of the use of digital technologies in public security by 15 of the current 26 mayors of capital cities, the party pulverization and the geographic diversity of these managers, the concealment of potential problems in the application of these technologies. Adopting the notions of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff, 2018/2020) and algorithmic racism (Silva, 2019), we conclusively understand that digital technologies applied to public security must consider the possible ethical, social, political, and cultural implications, especially in a country marked by structural racism, so that, in fighting crime and expanding protection, violence against historically discriminated groups is not perpetuated.