Portland, Maine has voted to ban facial recognition

Portland, Maine has handed a poll initiative banning the usage of facial recognition by police and metropolis businesses. The Bangor Daily News is reporting that voters have handed a poll initiative bolstering a ban on facial recognition by metropolis businesses.

The initiative follows a metropolis council vote in August, which put a preliminary ban in place as an ordinance. Today’s vote replaces that ordinance with a stronger measure, which can’t be revoked for not less than 5 years.

The ordinance was positioned on the poll earlier this yr by the Southern Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, as a part of a raft of different progressive initiatives together with a $15 minimal wage and new limits on hire will increase.

The new measure additionally provides concrete penalties, entitling non-public residents to a minimal of $1,000 in civil charges if they’re surveilled in violation of the ordinance. Violations of the ordinance are additionally established as grounds for terminating or suspending a metropolis worker. Private sector use of the expertise will not be affected.

Portland is simply the most recent metropolis to swear off the expertise, following earlier bans by Boston, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. In June, congressional Democrats launched a invoice that might institute an analogous ban on the federal stage, barring all federal legislation enforcement businesses from using facial recognition.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *