San Francisco bans police from using facial recognition tools

City officials voted eight-to-one to ban facial recognition use by law enforcement, with the ban to come into effect next week.

San Francisco has become the first US city to ban its police force from using facial recognition tools.

On Tuesday, city officials voted eight-to-one to implement a ban on surveillance technology amid concerns that it violates the privacy of citizens.

The rules, which are set to come into effect next week, not only mean that local agencies won't be allowed to use this technology, but that city administrators must approve plans to buy surveillance systems.

Additionally, departments that already use these systems will be asked to submit specialist reports outlining the way in which they use them.

Led by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance plan comes as the city has been accessing its surveillance policies after the false arrest of Denise Green in 2014.

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According to Bloomberg, Denise was pulled over by police after her Lexus was mistakenly identified as a stolen car by an automated license plate reader. It is believed that the city has paid $500,000 to settle lawsuits related to the situation.

"This is not really the top secret surveillance ordinance, it's really an ordinance that is about having accountability around surveillance technology," said Peskin in a statement obtained by San Francisco Chronicle.

"And with the narrow exception of the facial recognition technology, this is actually not designed to stop the use of any technologies that we currently employ or may use in the future."

The move was met with approval by civil rights organisations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California

"We applaud the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for bringing democratic oversight to surveillance technology, and for recognizing that face surveillance is incompatible with a healthy democracy," it said in a statement.

"By passing this law, the city gave the community a seat at the table and acted decisively to protect its people from the growing danger of face recognition, a highly invasive technology that would have radically and massively expanded the government's power to track and control people going about their daily lives."

However, the ruling has received some criticism. Joel Engardio, vice president of Stop Crime SF, said: "Instead of an outright ban, we believe a moratorium would have been more appropriate.

"We agree there are problems with facial recognition ID technology and it should not be used today. But the technology will improve and it could be a useful tool for public safety when used responsibly and with greater accuracy.

"We should keep the door open for that possibility. Especially when facial recognition technology can help locate missing children, people with dementia and fight sex trafficking.

He added: "We are disappointed there was not an exemption for large public events. San Francisco has a LGBTQ Pride parade and a Lunar Chinese New Year parade that draw hundreds of thousands of people. We want those events to be as safe as the New Year's Eve celebration in New York's Times Square

"If the world knows San Francisco isn't using the same technology as other cities to keep our city safe, then we make ourselves an open target for terrorism."

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