Facial Recognition Continues To Be Banned In America

Chitanis - Jul 18, 2019

Oakland is the third city to prohibit the use of facial recognition. There is a likelihood that this will spread to other cities across America.

Oakland in California has become the third place to prohibit the civic utilization of facial recognition. On Tuesday evening this week, City Council of Oakland gave consent to the ordinance that needs one more voting session scheduled on September 17^th.

Facial Recognition 1 — *Facial recognition continues to be banned*

San Francisco, a neighbor of Oakland, was the first to prohibit police officers across the city from the technical use of facial recognition, which violates the civil liberties of its citizens. The next or the second city council that passed this ordinance is Somerville in Massachusetts

Through her report, Rebecca Kaplan, President of City Council in Oakland, pointed out some weaknesses of facial recognition, as claimed by KPIX, including the shortage of criteria about its implementation, its potential of being used to persecute the minorities, and the technical restrictions.

American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California’s lawyer in civil liberties and technology, Matt Cagle, declared that elected representatives should be the ones who vote for the government collection and use of the technology.

Facial Recognition 2 — *The government use of this technology is being questioned*

On Wednesday, through his statement, Cagle expressed:

ACLU of Northern California stated that on the evening of July 16^th, the American House of Representatives also decided to make changes to the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which would ask for a report from National Intelligence’s Director each time the government used the technology of facial recognition. This report would mention not only procedures and policies to preserve rights stated in the First Amendment and human rights, but also details about the technical accuracy of the technology.