Facial Recognition Bans Handcuff Law Enforcement

Last week, San Francisco made history by becoming the first major city to ban law enforcement from using facial recognition technology, a type of computer system that can match similar faces, either by searching for similar images in a database (one-to-many) or confirming whether two images match (one-to-one). By a vote of 8 to 1, the Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance that prohibits the police and other agencies from using any form of facial recognition. It is understandable that people want to set limits on police surveillance and address racial bias in policing, but a blanket ban on facial recognition technology does nothing to address those underlying issues and only makes it more difficult for police to investigate crimes and improve public safety.