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ASSOCIATED PRESS/Eric Risberg
Topline: As facial recognition technology raises concerns about how it could lead to privacy and civil rights violations—especially for people of color—San Francisco became the first city to ban its use. But some worry a blanket ban hinders the ability of the police to find missing people and crime suspects.
- The ban covers city agencies and the police department.
- Critics of facial recognition say the technology isn’t reliable enough to be in the hands of law enforcement. Those inaccuracies could result in innocent people with darker skin becoming "entangled with the police and put in life threatening situations," Matt Cagle, a civil liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California, said.
- As a middle ground, neighborhood groups, such as Stop Crime SF, are calling for a moratorium instead of an outright ban. They want to revisit the issue when the technology improves because it can be instrumental in finding missing children or victims of human trafficking, said Joel Engardio, Stop Crime SF vice president, in an email.
- Stop Crime SF tried and ultimately failed to get an exception for large public events, such as LGBTQ Pride and the Lunar Chinese New Year parade . "If the world knows San Francisco isn't using the same technology as other cities to keep our city safe, then we make ourselves an open target for terrorism," Engardio said.
- But even if facial recognition were 100% accurate, civil rights groups worry it can easily be abused by police departments to target protesters or certain communities, such as Muslims who attend mosques. "The government has no business tracking when we leave our homes, when we go to a park or place of worship,” Cagle told NPR.
- A San Francisco Police Department spokesperson said it currently doesn’t use facial recognition. But Tony Montoya, president of the city's police union, said in an email he is "concerned with any unintended consequences from this ordinance that may inhibit or prohibit successful investigations of suspected criminal activity. "
- While San Francisco is the first city to enact such a ban, proposals are being considered in Oakland, California and Somerville, Massachusetts
Big asterisk: The ban doesn’t apply to the San Francisco International Airport and the Port of San Francisco, because they are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The ban also doesn’t apply to private businesses or individuals.
Key finding: A 2018 study by the M.I.T. Media Lab found that facial recognition programs have a higher error rate for women of color.
