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I know that my opinion is going to be unpopular but I strongly disagree with this move. I can understand not allowing facial recognition to be run in real time,

I know that my opinion is going to be unpopular but I strongly disagree with this move. I can understand not allowing facial recognition to be run in real time, or for instance to ban corporates from tracking me and using my face for advertisement data, but to ban the police seems extremely dumb. Facial recognition can be used to significantly cut down investigation times and costs and thus reduce the stress on police.

jasaloo 7y ago
I can understand that viewpoint. But if we look at the track record of how authorities actually use surveillance technology, it is aggressively used to squash dissent, rather than prevent/investigate crimes. Yes, facial recognition could help cops identify a robber more quickly and yes surveillance has been used to expedite investigations, but what we've seen is that cops across the board will disproportionately abuse this sort of technology to track and monitor (and sometimes later harass) protesters, activists, ethnic/religious minorities and the undocumented. Here's one instance at the federal level, but abuse happens at the state and local level constantly. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/standing-rock-fbi-investigation-dakota-access https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/standing-roc...
- philwelch 7y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if accurate facial recognition technology actually cut down on things like overt racial profiling.
  - jasaloo 7y ago
    yeah, maybe... but the question is always 'at what cost?' There are ways of cutting down on racial profiling that don't require turning our city into a panopticon.
guelo 7y ago
There's no need to create the matrix in the name of security. Crime is historically low. Police have been able to do their jobs without this tool. Once the police have the tools it will be abused. Everytime. Stop it.
- justchilly 7y ago
  Crime is historically high in SF. Obvious to anyone that has lived in Sf for a while. Source 1) https://hoodline.com/2019/04/crime-is-on-the-rise-in-san-francisco-here-are-the-latest-trends https://hoodline.com/2019/04/crime-is-on-the-rise-in-san-fra... Source 1b) https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/ Source 2) home burgled twice so far in 2019
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    I bet if you included the 70s and 80s it wouldn’t be the historic high. Property crimes are obviously way up even if violent crimes aren’t so much.
Reelin 7y ago
> but to ban the police seems extremely dumb I think this conclusion is due to missing some of the downsides. Could it cut costs and speed investigations? Certainly! But try to imagine some of the creative ways in which a naive implementation could be abused.
toephu2 7y ago
I agree with you too. I think everyone who supports the ban and all the supervisors that voted for it have never been a victim of a crime. Or at least never been a victim of a crime recorded on camera. I bet 99% of the people who have been a victim of a crime that was recorded on camera and yet nothing was done to catch the criminals would be in favor of using facial recognition technology by the police.

jasaloo 7y ago

I can understand that viewpoint. But if we look at the track record of how authorities actually use surveillance technology, it is aggressively used to squash dissent, rather than prevent/investigate crimes. Yes, facial recognition could help cops identify a robber more quickly and yes surveillance has been used to expedite investigations, but what we've seen is that cops across the board will disproportionately abuse this sort of technology to track and monitor (and sometimes later harass) protesters, activists, ethnic/religious minorities and the undocumented. Here's one instance at the federal level, but abuse happens at the state and local level constantly. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/standing-rock-fbi-investigation-dakota-access https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/standing-roc...

philwelch 7y ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if accurate facial recognition technology actually cut down on things like overt racial profiling.
- jasaloo 7y ago
  yeah, maybe... but the question is always 'at what cost?' There are ways of cutting down on racial profiling that don't require turning our city into a panopticon.

guelo 7y ago

There's no need to create the matrix in the name of security. Crime is historically low. Police have been able to do their jobs without this tool. Once the police have the tools it will be abused. Everytime. Stop it.

justchilly 7y ago
Crime is historically high in SF. Obvious to anyone that has lived in Sf for a while. Source 1) https://hoodline.com/2019/04/crime-is-on-the-rise-in-san-francisco-here-are-the-latest-trends https://hoodline.com/2019/04/crime-is-on-the-rise-in-san-fra... Source 1b) https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/ Source 2) home burgled twice so far in 2019
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  I bet if you included the 70s and 80s it wouldn’t be the historic high. Property crimes are obviously way up even if violent crimes aren’t so much.

Reelin 7y ago

> but to ban the police seems extremely dumb I think this conclusion is due to missing some of the downsides. Could it cut costs and speed investigations? Certainly! But try to imagine some of the creative ways in which a naive implementation could be abused.

toephu2 7y ago

I agree with you too. I think everyone who supports the ban and all the supervisors that voted for it have never been a victim of a crime. Or at least never been a victim of a crime recorded on camera. I bet 99% of the people who have been a victim of a crime that was recorded on camera and yet nothing was done to catch the criminals would be in favor of using facial recognition technology by the police.