San Francisco Bans Facial Recognition Technology

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times



SAN FRANCISCO — On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors enacted the first ban by a major city on the use of facial recognition technology by police and all other municipal agencies. The vote was 8 to 1 in favor, with two members who support the bill absent. There will be an obligatory second vote next week but it is seen as a formality.

Police forces across America have begun turning to facial recognition to search for both small-time criminal suspects and perpetrators of mass carnage: authorities used the technology to help identify the gunman in the mass killing at a Annapolis, Md., newspaper in June. But civil liberty groups have expressed unease about the technology’s potential abuse by government amid fears that it may shove the United States in the direction of an overly oppressive surveillance state.

Aaron Peskin, the city supervisor who announced the bill, said that it sent a particularly strong message to the nation, coming from a city transformed by tech. “I think part of San Francisco being the real and perceived headquarters for all things tech also comes with a responsibility for its local legislators,” said Mr. Peskin, who represents neighborhoods on the northeast side of the city. “We have an outsize responsibility to regulate the excesses of technology precisely because they are headquartered here.”

Similar bans are under consideration in Oakland and in Somerville, Mass., outside of Boston. In Massachusetts, a bill in the state legislature would put a moratorium on facial recognition and other remote biometric surveillance systems. On Capitol Hill, a bill introduced last month would ban users of commercial face recognition technology from collecting and sharing data for identifying or tracking consumers without their consent, although it does not address the government’s uses of the technology.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/us/facial-recognition-ban-san-francisco.html

[ffr]

1. Google Texas and Florida, two red states with runaway FR surveilance.

Good on S.F. Hope the remainder of California adopts the ban too.

Let the people in red states who say they have nothing to hide be the guinea pigs.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. Good for them!

Runaway technology could create a nightmare world if we don't stop and consider before we allow it to be used.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[JudyM]

4. "...a bill introduced last month would ban users of commercial face recognition tech from collecting

and sharing data for identifying or tracking consumers without their consent”

Yeah, that will happen. Just like the grand effectiveness of the DoNotCall registry.