Very Little Stands Between the U.S. and a Technological Panopticon This summer, when officials in a few cities [1] started using facial recognition software [2] to identify protesters, many cried foul. Those objections turned ironic when protesters used facial recognition to identify police officers [3] who had covered their badges or nameplates during protests. Powerful technology beloved by police had become a tool for accountability: David defeats Goliath. Possibly satisfying—but profoundly naive. Protesters, civil libertarians, and ordinary Americans have far more to lose than gain from the normalization of facial recognition software. These incidents simply highlight the pressing need for more comprehensive regulation of this increasingly cheap and powerful tool, one that threatens to alter the balance of power between citizens and their government.