The Guardian, May 30, 2019: San Francisco was right to ban facial recognition. Surveillance is a real danger
San Francisco’s recent municipal ordinance banning the use of facial recognition technology by city and county agencies has received international attention. The first of its kind anywhere in the US, the law is a preemptive response to the proliferation of a technology that the city of San Francisco does not yet deploy but which is already in use elsewhere. Since the passage of the ordinance, a debate has erupted in cities and states around the country: should other localities follow San Francisco’s example?
The answer is a resounding yes. The concerns that motivated the San Francisco ban are rooted not just in the potential inaccuracy of facial recognition technology, but in a long national history of politicized and racially-biased state surveillance.
