Facial recognition technology is not new. Several industries including It is travel, health, cryptocurrency, banking, insurance and many more uses this technology. It helps them to identify fraudster presenting fake information. Basically, Facial Recognition technology is an AI-based approach capable of cross-matching the human face with the one present on the document like IDs and Passports. Also, it includes the videos and images in digital form. 

For the last two decades, Police departments are using this technology to identify criminals. However, it faced lots of criticism as it involves the factors of:

Privacy and Accuracy. 

It became one of the hot topics for debate on how to use this technology in a way that does not disturb the privacy of the people. But as it was a tricky task to perform, thus the use of facial recognition technology by Police got banned in different places like Oakland, San Francisco, and Portland. 

But this technology is a great help to identify fraudsters. Also, as this is now a world of technology and it has become really strong too. Thus using such technologies not only helps but also saves time and energy that would be required for lengthy investigations. Considering this, Massachusetts passed a new law for this technology. It involves the rules and regulations on using this tool in a way that would not lead to false arrests that happened in the past. 

What does the new law suggest?

Police must need to get the Judge’s permission to perform a Facial Recognition search.

A local police officer cannot just download the form and do it on his behalf. 

While conducting the research after obtaining permission, someone from the state police or the FBI must be involved in the search.

What happened in 2019?

Despite this, in the year 2019, the ACLU of Massachusetts launched a campaign against Face Recognition technology. This campaign highlights the drawbacks of this technology that hurts privacy and also leads towards faulty arrests.  According to an article published in New York Times, a statement was recorded by ACLU offices stating:

Facial Recognition is uniquely harmful and must be banned. 

Thus, by the year 2020, facial recognition technology got banned in many cities of Massachusetts including Boston. A bill was passed which restricted the Government and other departments from using this technology except for the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The only purpose of allowing them was to minimize the risk of identity theft. Hence, a commotion started and the Police department didn’t respond to this law at all.

Although a statement on their behalf was recorded as:

"While we do not currently use or have plans to use any facial recognition software, we hope the law evolves as the technology evolves and improves."

According to Mr. Crockford:

It is politically impossible to ban Facial recognition technology.

He has been working for the ACLU of Massachusetts in the department of technology since 2009.

But, the state was not in favour of this technology. Thus some ground rules were made as discussed earlier. Its purpose was to make use of this technology in a positive way.

Hence, their points were justified and Massachusetts finally gave permission to use facial verification technology by the Police department. But, In order to use this technology certain criteria were set up.

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