Discussion

• @edmarkey Ed Markey on x

  Facial recognition software poses a grave danger to communities of color and threatens to strip all of us of our privacy and civil liberties. I applaud the Boston City Council for voting to ban this dangerous technology and protect our constitutional right to privacy. https://twi…

• @evan_greer Evan Greer on x

  The Boston ban on #facialrecognition applies not just to cops and law enforcement but also to Boston Public Schools. Grateful to the work of @onekade and the big coalition that got this over the finish line with a UNANIMOUS vote! https://www.cnet.com/...

• @cendemtech @cendemtech on x

  “Boston...city council unanimously voted on Wednesday to ban the use of [#facialrecognition] technology & prohibit any city official from obtaining facial surveillance by asking for it through third parties:” https://www.wbur.org/...

• @karlmorx Mork on x

  boston city council just voted unanimously to ban facial recognition technology and but it's still only the second largest in the world to do so behind san francisco. if i was a municipal leader i would simply follow suit and also ban obviously enormously flawed technology

• @geoffreyfowler Geoffrey A. Fowler on x

  Now Boston has banned facial recognition tech, following San Francisco, Somerville, Brookline, Northampton, Springfield and Cambridge. https://www.wbur.org/...

• @evan_greer Evan Greer on x

  BREAKING: my home town of Boston just became the latest city to ban the use of facial recognition surveillance. It's time for Congress to do their jobs and #BanFacialRecognition at the federal level to ensure everyone is protected from this racist tech https://www.wbur.org/...

• @terrinamajnoona @terrinamajnoona on x

  Not knocking the reasoning behind this or the intention, but does anyone think that under current conditions any ban on police using/doing anything is any sort of deterrent to them? https://twitter.com/...

• @alfredwkng @alfredwkng on x

  Boston is now the largest city on the East Coast to ban facial recognition. The NYPD justifies using facial recognition as an anti-terrorism measure. The ordinance passed today doesn't affect the surveillance that caught the Boston Marathon bombers: https://www.cnet.com/...

• @kashhill Kashmir Hill on x

  In January, in the first known case of its kind, a man in Michigan was arrested for a crime he did not commit due to a flawed algorithmic facial recognition match. I told his story here: https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @edmundlee Edmund Lee on x

  After this article was published, the prosecutor offered to expunge the man's arrest record ... again, after the article https://twitter.com/...

• @acluofmichigan @acluofmichigan on x

  “I never thought I'd have to explain to my daughters why Daddy got arrested. How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...

• @mprnews @mprnews on x

  “I picked [a surveillance camera photo] up and held it to my face and told [the detective], 'I hope you don't think all Black people look alike.'” Though the case was dropped, Robert Williams says its effect is lasting. https://www.mprnews.org/...

• @antoinette0x53 Antoinette on x

  I've said it before and I'm saying it again. You can't make software that impacts human lives without understanding the human lives you're impacting. No one is saying you have to be a scholar on all things race and socioeconomic BUT THE BARE MINIMUM CAN SAVE A LIFE. https://twitt…

• @radicalaipod @radicalaipod on x

  “... Williams is the first known example of an American wrongfully arrested based on a false hit produced by facial recognition technology.” What about the times when these stories aren't reported or caught? What happens then? https://www.npr.org/...

• @aclu @aclu on x

  Robert Williams' is the first known case of someone being wrongfully arrested because of a bogus face recognition match. If lawmakers don't act now to stop law enforcement use of this technology, he won't be the last. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...

• @editingemily Emily Freeman on x

  This is on us. And, outside of the judicial branch pulling their shit together, we're the only ones who can fix it. https://twitter.com/...

• @lizjosullivan @lizjosullivan on x

  OH BY THE WAY, @NYPDnews uses the same Facial Recognition vendor. https://twitter.com/...

• @digiphile Alex Howard on x

  Impact: In response to @KashHill's article, the Wayne County prosecutor's office said Williams could have the case & his PII expunged. “We apologize,” the prosecutor said in a statement, adding, “This does not in any way make up for the hours that Mr. Williams spent in jail.” htt…

• @digiphile Alex Howard on x

  Tech is coming online that will give law enforcement near-godlike powers, with limited oversight, transparency or accountability, & will be justified in the name of protecting kids, property, & more: https://www.nytimes.com/... beware “Innocent until software predicts you are gui…

• @emilyrosefinn Emily Finn on x

  #NEW: In a unanimous vote today, the Boston City Council bans the use of facial recognition technology by government and law enforcement officials. Boston is now the second-largest city in the U.S. to impose such a ban, following San Francisco.

• @sensanders Bernie Sanders on x

  Robert Julian-Borchak Williams was wrongfully arrested because racist facial recognition technology misidentified him for a crime he did not commit. We can't allow this to happen again. It's time to ban facial recognition technology for policing. https://www.nytimes.com/...

• @wolfiesmiffed @wolfiesmiffed on x

  If anyone ever rocks up claiming to have a system that can identify criminal tendency from somebody's face, remind them that “Physiognomy” is completely debunked pseudoscience and no amount of spaffing computer power and AI at it is going to change that https://www.bbc.co.uk/...

• @joshchin Josh Chin on x

  To be clear, this is the first case where a wrongful arrest based on flawed facial recognition has been *proven*. There are plenty of other cases out there where it might have happened but police and prosecutors refused to subject systems to scrutiny https://twitter.com/...

• @matt_cagle Matt Cagle on x

  Facial recognition fuels racist policing and facilitates life-altering harm. This is precisely why cities across America are banning it. The government shouldn't be allowed to use tech that makes us less safe and less free. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...

• @sapna Sapna Maheshwari on x

  a jaw-dropping and painful story - read all the way to the end (and extra props to @kashhill for just returning from maternity leave last week and immediately writing an absolute must-read) https://twitter.com/...

• @tiffanycli Tiffany C. Li on x

  First wrong arrest due to flawed facial recognition system. Expect more, unless we halt FRT entirely or improve it drastically and regulate it strongly at the same time. https://twitter.com/...

• @leonderczynski Leon Derczynski on x

  I said it before it was blindly given more power than humans have, but I'll say it again: Ban facial recognition. Ban factional recognition; ban facial recognition. https://twitter.com/...

• @profcarroll David Carroll on x

  There is no made-for-TV CSI “enhance” feature for surveillance footage. Attempts to build such a fanastic feature are shockingly racist. Facial recog use in law enforcement is just a fancy new kind of structural racism. https://www.vice.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twi…