[NEWS] San Francisco passes city government ban on facial recognition tech – Loganspace

On Tuesday, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to approve a ban on the usage of facial recognition tech by metropolis companies, in conjunction with the police division. TheQuit Secret Surveillance Ordinance,presented by San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, is the most famous ban of its kind for a most famous American metropolis and the seventh most famous surveillance oversight effort for a municipality in California.

“I are seeking to be definite — this is now not an anti-technology policy,” Peskin talked about one day of Tuesday’s board meeting. Peskin deemphasized the ban aspect of the ordinance, instead framing it as an outgrowth of thesweeping records privateness reformssigned into regulations by California Governor Jerry Brown final year and an extension of prior efforts in other counties around the recount. In 2016,Santa Clara countyhanded its bear predecessor to San Francisco’s surveillance oversight policy, but that ordinance didn’t consist of a ban.

Peskin clarified that the ordinance is an accountability measure “to be optimistic the safe and responsible dispute” of surveillance tech and to enable the public to be inquisitive about choices cherish how long records is kept and who can look it.

The ordinance handed by a vote of eight to one, with San Francisco District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani dissenting. On the other hand, Stefani called the ordinance “a completely-intentioned share of regulations” and lauded the board’s ability to take care of respectful difference. Closing week, the board’s Principles Committeeelected to dawdle aheadwith a vote on the proposal.

Importantly, the ordinance moreover involves a provision that could well require metropolis departments to witness explicit approval ahead of acquiring any new surveillance equipment. The ban would now not impact facial recognition tech deployed by non-public companies, though it could indulge in an impact on any companies promoting tech to the metropolis authorities.

Whereas metropolis companies will should always witness approval to engage new surveillance devices, they’re going to be allowed to proceed the usage of what they indulge in already obtained, in conjunction with police body cameras and vehicle plate readers. Supervisors expressed hope that the ordinance would lead to a pudgy accounting of such equipment.

Amongst the many divisive aspects of facial recognition is the technology’s disproportionate impact on already heavily policed communities of shade. Freshlearn suggeststhat non-white folk are now not diagnosed as accurately as their white peers, a discrepancy that bakes racial profiling correct kind into the tech itself.

The split over the ban is energizing every anti-surveillance teams and proponents of high-tech policing. The ban’s supporters consist of the ACLU, the Digital Frontier Foundation and native teams cherish Oakland Privacy.

“If unleashed, face surveillance would suppress civic engagement, compound discriminatory policing, and essentially alternate how we exist in public spaces,” the ACLU of Northern California’s Matt Cagle and Brian Hofer, chair of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Price, wrote final week in anop-ed arguing in resolve on of the ordinance.

Other cities and states are looking into bans on facial recognition tech, though San Francisco’s bear efforts are the most ragged up to now. For instance,a bill in Washington recountwould require facial recognition tool to starting up itself to third-birthday party trying out. In that case, most famous tech companies are weighing the rate to their future industry towards public sentiment that facial recognition and other surveillance methods are an invasive formulation for tech companies to leverage their energy.

Across the bridge from San Francisco,Oakland and Berkeleyare every mulling their very bear items of regulations for facial recognition tech, is known as the Surveillance and Community Security Ordinance and Surveillance Abilities Employ and Community Security Ordinance, respectively. The East Bay could well now not be some distance in the encourage of San Francisco’s bear vote.