It is Pride, so of course I will be covering queerness and surveillance.
In March of this year, the President of Hungary signed a law that banned LGBTQIA+ Pride events under the pretext that they were harmful to children. He also approved facial recognition to track any attendees.
All of this is happening in the United States, too.
First off, there is a weaponized push for age verification on porn sites. So many dangerous elements are actually couched in these types of age verification laws.
This is being pushed forward by the conservative right, so have a think about what the conservative right and fascists have been calling porn. Everything from drag queen storybook hour, to gender-affirming care for young people, to being a trans athlete, or even using the restroom.
Fascists categorize trans and queerness as porn, gender-affirming care as porn, competing in sports, and going to the bathroom as porn. There is a reason the right has always been so dedicated to masquerading under the guise of “protecting the children” for so many issues. It is because they can fold in any group they want.
Age verification for websites also brings up privacy issues. Often it is a third party doing the verification check. Who is vetting the third party? How are they verifying people? Are they using biometrics? Where are they storing the information? Who exactly is conducting the checks?
Age verification means identity verification. So if someone wants to visit certain websites, they would have to reveal and prove their identity. This can impact LGBTQIA+ resources, trans health, reproductive care resources, sexual assault support, abortion information, and any other category or group that the right is trying to attack.
In the United States, with the attack on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, many Pride events have already been canceled.
In addition, facial recognition is widely used by DHS, CBP, cities, governments, police, and various other agencies. They have been using it to identify people that they want to abduct, people who are trying to protect each other from abduction, to go after students who are fighting genocide, and to track people who are protesting and marching for justice.
The attack on LGBTQIA+ people through surveillance happening in Hungary, is happening in the United States Empire right now already.
So what can we do?
I am going to continue sharing information on fighting facial recognition and biometric theft at the global level, as well as resources on how to fight them at the state and better levels.
Be sure to check out keepbeyond.com/optout, which is a site I constantly update about facial recognition, biometric theft, AI, surveillance culture, our digital identities, theft of our work by algorithms, and everything on opting out.
I will also continue fighting for trans and queer liberation. Remember that Pride was an uprising against police violence and surveillance, particularly against and of trans people, sex workers, and People of the Global Majority.
So let us go back to our queer roots this Pride. It’s time for our Queer uprising.
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