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Privacy United States Technology

San Francisco Could Be First US City To Ban Facial-Recognition Technology (cnn.com) 78

San Francisco, long one of the most tech-friendly and tech-savvy cities in the world, is poised to prohibit its government from using facial-recognition technology. From a report: A proposed ban is part of a broader anti-surveillance ordinance that the city's Board of Supervisors is expected to approve on Tuesday. If passed -- a majority of the board's 11 supervisors have expressed support for it -- it will make San Francisco the first city in the United States to outlaw the use of such technology by the police and other government departments. The ordinance could also spur other local governments to take similar action. Facial-recognition systems are increasingly used everywhere from police departments to rock concerts to homes, stores and schools. They are designed to identify specific people from live video feeds, recorded video footage or still photos, often by comparing their features with a set of faces (such as mugshots).
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San Francisco Could Be First US City To Ban Facial-Recognition Technology

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  • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @01:52PM (#58591776)

    What they really need is some poop recognition technology, so they can fine all those fuckers shitting on the sidewalks.

    • Sounds like a real shitty proposition and a shit job to boot, probably even got a shitty supervisor and likely shit pay!

      Where do people get these shit ideas from?

    • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

      What they really need is some poop recognition technology, so they can fine all those fuckers shitting on the sidewalks.

      Snark is noted, but that's what public restrooms are for. San Francisco barely has any; they even locked restrooms at BART stations 'to save money'. Shit on the sidewalk is what you get for treating the poor like shit.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      What they really need is some poop recognition technology, so they can fine all those fuckers shitting on the sidewalks.

      Erm, if people are regularly defecating on the footpath, perhaps your city/country requires more public conveniences. Maybe instead of starting another war in the Middle East you could funnel some of that funding to the construction of lavatories.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    So they just farm it out. That is the idea right? To privatize everything so the constitution doesn't apply?

  • by syn3rg ( 530741 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @02:24PM (#58592064) Homepage
    Did anyone else read "fecal recognition technology"? I mean, it is San Francisco...
  • by Anonymous Coward

    All that will happen is SF will see federal units sent to perform facial recognition in its place.

    Does BART fall under its jurisdiction? If not, most of these people will just get filmed at all the other BART stops, since there are what... 3 (per line?) in SF itself?

    While I appreciate what they are doing, without a top to bottom legal choice to ban this, it will get used to make America into a Police State, no doubt about it. Meanwhile it won't protect us from any of the real criminals, because they can pay

    • All that will happen is SF will see federal units sent to perform facial recognition in its place.

      The proposed ban would also impact "entering into agreement with a non-City entity to acquire, share, or otherwise use Surveillance Technology" and even " any information obtained from Face Recognition Technology". There's a tiny bit of wiggle room for infrequently-obtained facial recognition data that wasn't asked for, but it looks like the ban was written with your scenario in mind....

      (Then there's that whole issue of states/cities can't force federal law enforcement to do things for it, and the feds a

  • Why would something like this be disallowed for government but allowed for businesses? Many large businesses are more powerful than local governments. And pretty much everything a business collects is directly passed on to the governments anyway...
    • Two words: virtue signaling.
      • by Anonymous Coward

        One word: constitution.

        They said it's going to get passed. That means it's not virtue signaling as they are actively doing something.

        But you knew that, you flew the coup a long time ago. Just another white conservacuck that's gonna bite the dust. We own this world now, get used to it.

    • Why would something like this be disallowed for government but allowed for businesses?

      Four words: Silicon Valley libertarian horseshit

    • Perhaps for a similar reason to why the government is not allowed to censor speech but allowed for businesses. Also, you don't have a choice of government, but you often do have a choice of more than one business offering the same product or service and you can choose not to do business with those whose practices you don't like.
  • The creators of mass surveillance certainly don't want it used on them, and the biggest offenders like Google are all in and around SF.

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