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.