[ad_1]
After years has failed strives stop monitoring technologies, Baltimore is close to making one of the nation’s toughest bans facial recognition. But it would be a proposed ban by Baltimore very different laws in San Francisco or Portland, Oregon: if it lasted just one year, police would be exempt and private use of the technology would become illegal.
City Council member Kristerfer Burnett, who introduced the proposed ban, says the Baltimore nuances have shaped it, although critics have complained that individuals who use the technology can be unjustly punished, or even imprisoned.
Last year, Burnett introduced a version of the bill that would permanently ban face recognition in the city. When that failed, he filed this version, with a one-year “sunset” clause, demanding an extension of city council approval. In early June, the council voted 12-2 in favor; now awaiting the signature of Mayor Brandon Scott.
“It was important to start having this conversation next year, basically to find out what the regulatory framework might be like,” Burnett says.
The proposed law would regularly create a team to report on the purchase of newly acquired surveillance tools, describing their cost and effectiveness. They have cities like New York and Pittsburgh create similar ones working groups, but they have been recognized “Waste” because members do not have the resources or the power to enforce them.
Burnett says the reports are crucial, as the political landscape in Baltimore could be very different in a year’s time.
Since 1860, the Baltimore Police Department has been largely controlled by the state, not the city. The council and the mayor appoint a police commissioner and set the department’s budget, but the council does not have the power to ban the use of face recognition by police.
However, Baltimore neighbors will have the opportunity the police department will return to control of the city to vote next year. Mayor Scott himself supported this change during his time as a city councilor. The local control measure could appear at the polls when the one-year ban expires, when Burnett and other privacy advocates would benefit from examining the effects of the one-year ban.
The conversation about returning police to control of the city was rekindled The death of Freddie Gray In 2015 he was in police custody. The then mayor Catherine Pugh set up a working group to offer suggestions on police reform; In 2018, the working group has released a report warning that “BPD will never be fully responsible to its residents until full control of the department is returned to the city.”
Revelations used by the police were added to the push to regain local control social media tracking software and facial knowledge to study the demonstrators Gray after death. Burnett says the city needs to consider the proper use of surveillance tools “where it is before it reaches space [surveillance] it’s so vast that it becomes much more difficult to dismantle. ”On the other hand, the government says it tends to be“ much more reactive ”.
Critics say the proposed ban is an example of over-dissemination. The police department and the city’s Fraternity Police Order oppose the measure. A police spokesman sent WIRED a letter from the department to the council, in which it wrote that “it would be more prudent to impose protections than to ban a new face recognition technology.”
Trade groups came out against the bill, especially the provisions on the private use of facial recognition. As written, the bill not only criminalizes the offense, but also criminalizes that offense, with a 12-month prison sentence. It goes further than that Portland law prohibiting the private use of facial recognition, making offenders liable for damages and attorneys ’fees.
Groups such as the Security Industry Association argued that this could criminalize private business owners, such as conducting face-to-face checks on access to facilities or using schools for online checks using technology. Councilor Isaac Schleifer cited potential criminalization as the main concern in the “no” vote on the measure.
[ad_2]
Source link
