In a move lauded by privacy advocates, Boston joins the ranks of cities that have voted down the municipal use of the technology
Boston has become the second-largest city in the world after San Francisco to ban the use of facial recognition technology by police and city agencies. The ordinance was passed unanimously on Wednesday and bars city officials from using the technology and from procuring facial surveillance from a third party. The measure earned a veto-proof majority and was been passed to the office of Mayor Martin J. Walsh, which will review it.
One of the bill’s sponsors, Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, pointed out that the technology is inaccurate when it comes to people of color, a statement supported by a 2018 MIT study that found an error rate of almost 35% for dark-skinned women compared to the 0.8% for light-skinned men. Another study, conducted by conducted by NIST, also saw higher rates of false positives for Asian and African-American faces relative to image of Caucasians in one-to-one matching scenarios.
“It has an obvious racial bias and that’s dangerous,” said Arroyo in a statement obtained by the National Public Radio (NPR). However, that is only one of his concerns; he fears that the adoption of such technologies would infringe on civil liberties, free speech, and activism.
The ban was passed even though city officials say that the Boston Police Department (BPD) hasn’t used the technology yet. However, the upgraded version of BriefCam, the video analysis software that is currently being used by the departme ..
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