A Second US City Has Banned Facial Recognition

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Somerville, Massachusetts just became the second U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition in public space. The "Face Surveillance Full Ban Ordinance," which passed through Somerville's City Council on Thursday night, forbids any "department, agency, bureau, and/or subordinate division of the City of Somerville" from using facial recognition software in public spaces. The ordinance passed Somerville's Legislative Matters Committee on earlier this week. The ordinance defines facial surveillance as "an automated or semi-automated process that assists in identifying an individual, capturing information about an individual, based on the physical characteristics of an individual's face," which is operationally equivalent to facial recognition. San Francisco banned the use of facial recognition by police and city government agencies a month ago.

Too specific

[alvinrod]

Doesn't do anything to prevent them from using other recognition methods [apnews.com] that don't rely on a person's face.

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yep, notice they didn't ban TPS RFID sensors.....

Re:

[easyTree]

We're putting cover sheets on the TPS reports now *posturing* *back-stretching* *self-soothing with coffee cup*

Re:

[nitehawk214]

I think I saw genital recognition used in the movie Porky's.

Re:

[the_skywise]

It'd be an interesting concept
"Please, grind against the sensor plate so we can identify you."

Does this mean I can't

[goombah99]

look at my iphone X?

Seems like a magnet for criminals

[olsmeister]

Anyone who is on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list is going to want to relocate to one of these places.

Re:

[Cajun Hell]

It actually only bans the tech being used by the government. People in this place can still end up on Facebook's or Google's 10 most-wanted lists.

Re:

[easyTree]

So this is really a tourist-board advert to attract wealthy crime speculators?

Re: Facial Recognition Bans Up 100%

[NeoMorphy]

That town is actually a city with the densest population in all of New England. It's next to Boston and Cambridge (M.I.T. and Harvard) and has been in several movies.

Spirit of bill of rights

[Oswald McWeany]

Really facial recognition technology in public spaces to me goes against the spirit of the bill of rights; mostly the 4th Amendment (protection from unreasonable searches), but a few others touch on it too.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

there's a fundamental difference between being in plain sight
vs having someone follow you around all over the place whenever you're in public

facial recognition would normalize the latter

Re:

[thelexx]

Do you even know what the word 'spirit' means in this context?

Re: Spirit of bill of rights

[peragrin]

That's just it if you are walking down the street someone can take your picture and publish it without your permission.

That is how paperazzi are allowed to work. A photo taken on public land is usable by anyone.

So a system designed to take photos of the streets and upload those images to facial recognition software to track a face is perfectly legal. No police or law enforcement needed.

They are banning such systems as some people find it abusive to what they think of as their rights.

I like the idea of ban

Re: Spirit of bill of rights

[drew_kime]

That's just it if you are walking down the street someone can take your picture and publish it without your permission.

But they aren't allowed to follow you around all day photographing you. There are laws against stalking and harassment. I'm surprised no one has challenged surveillance systems on these grounds yet.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[sbrown123]

The biggest advocates against facial recognition are also pro-illegal immigration. Think about it.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

need more info

[drinkypoo]

I'm on the tablet so I'm not doing the research right now, but did they also prohibit their buying the data from a third party? It won't help if they can get location data from some contractor.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

This was my first thought. Seems to ban government workers from doing it, but not the private sector.

Re:

[markdavis]

>"I'm on the tablet so I'm not doing the research right now, but did they also prohibit their buying the data from a third party? It won't help if they can get location data from some contractor."

I was about the post the same thing. The law is basically meaningless if they can just go to private contractors and "buy" the same information. In some ways, it is even worse.

We went through this exact same thing with plate-readers. It is illegal in some states for the state to buy, deploy, or use such reade

Re:

[easyTree]

Not meaningless, it appears to offer guaranteed business to third-party providers of facial recognition services. So, win for lobbyists?

Re: I laugh...

[Cmdln Daco]

Laughter is actually a sign of discomfort. What is it about people opposing facial recognition technology that bothers you?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

right to privacy, no
right not be stalked, yes

Horrible Law

[Jim Sadler]

I think facial ID everywhere is a great idea. The way the privacy advocates think it is shocking that they allow each other the right to identify there wife or kids in person. If I am in a place I have no problem with the world knowing about it. It simply does not matter one bit. If I am in a brothel I have no problem with the world knowing about it.

Re:

[easyTree]

If I am in a brothel I have no problem with the world knowing about it.

So, we should anticipate a status update on Facebook?

Sorry Apple

[SuperKendall]

Looks like government employees have just been banned from using FaceID in public!

Why only government?

[Bradmont]

Why do these bills only ever target government or law enforcement? What is needed is a total ban, for everybody.

Re:

[BitterOak]

Why do these bills only ever target government or law enforcement? What is needed is a total ban, for everybody.

And how would that work? Are you going to ban any photography of people in public places? And if not, what's to stop someone from taking pictures in public then doing the facial recognition offline at home? Are we going to be policing people's personal computers now? And what's to stop businesses from sending the images they capture out of state for facial recognition processing? How far can these laws reach?

Do any of the /. editors read /.?

[drew_kime]

Come on, guys. A little further down the front page is the story about infrared laser heartbeat recognition [slashdot.org]. How do you not mention this in the summary?

Prediction...

[Obfuscant]

This law will last until a murder is committed in a public space and the cops have a security camera image of the killer. Or even a cell phone snap, from the way it sounds. They are prohibited from using facial recognition systems to identify the killer, so ...

Maybe it's a rape victim who took a pic of her attacker, maybe just a robbery. Some crime that could be solved easily but can't because of this law.

BookFace-free zone?

[easyTree]

Does this include asynchronous facial recognition of the form employed by BookFace:
  * BookFace field-agents roam the earth photographing anyone and anything, desperate for that polyphonic fix...-asynchrony-... BookFace's servers scan their field-agent intelligence and tag everyone's identity, location, groupings.

Is this still 'ok' in these locations?