Boston bans police from using facial recognition technology

Boston bans police from using facial recognition technology

By Christopher Carbone | Fox News

Boston has banned police from using facial recognition technology, becoming the second-largest U.S. community to do so.

The city council unanimously voted on Wednesday to ban the controversial technology's use and prohibit any city official from obtaining facial surveillance by asking for it via third parties.

"It has an obvious racial bias and that's dangerous," Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who sponsored the bill, said ahead of the hearing, per WBUR. "But it also has sort of a chilling effect on civil liberties. And so, in a time where we're seeing so much direct action in the form of marches and protests for rights, any kind of surveillance technology that could be used to essentially chill free speech or ... more or less monitor activism or activists is dangerous."

Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/tech/boston-bans-police-facial-recognition-technology