Somerville Bans Facial Recognition Technology

SOMERVILLE, MA — The City Council voted to ban the use of facial recognition technology in public spaces Thursday night. The 11-0 vote sends the ordinance to Mayor Joseph Curtatone, who has expressed support for it.

Somerville will be the second American city, behind San Francisco, to ban facial surveillance. Similar measures are being considered in the California cities of Oakland and Berkeley.

"The city is sending a bold statement that it won’t sit by idly while the dystopian technology further outpaces our civil liberties protections and harms privacy, racial and gender justice, and freedom of speech," Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in an emailed statement. "Massachusetts must also lead the nation by passing a statewide moratorium until there are safeguards in place. Massachusetts voters agree: We must ensure face surveillance technology doesn’t get out ahead of our basic rights."

Facial recognition technology can aid large-scale investigations by scanning video footage to find a person of interest. Somerville City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, who introduced the bill, conceded that he sees the value of the technology in emergencies but believes the technology has a long way to go.

"I think if the federal and state governments were to set up extremely clear and robust regulations that ensure this technology wouldn't be used for mass surveillance – that it would only be used under extremely defined circumstances of public security – and if all the inaccuracies and inconsistencies were addressed, we can have a conversation about it being in the hands of law enforcement," Ewen-Campen told Patch.

He pointed to a study that found Amazon's facial analysis technology misidentified women, particularly those with dark skin, as men, and another showing the same technology falsely matched dozens of members of Congress with mugshots.

"My concern here is that this is being rolled out around the country, being marketed to law enforcement agencies currently with no regulations, guardrails or public transparency about what is and what's not allowed," Ewen-Campen said. "I think that's a really dangerous situation."

This isn't the first time Somerville leaders have pushed for greater transparency in surveillance technology. The city passed the Executive Policy on Surveillance Technology in 2017, requiring any surveillance technology to have detailed use policies, share data and produce yearly reports.

The 30 locations across Somerville equipped with surveillance cameras are mapped on its website.

"I think our community is very passionate about these issues, passionate about criminal justice reform, equity in policing," Ewen-Campen said. "The people of Somerville do not want to live under a militarized police force, and we don't. We've had great success working with our police department and community policing."