Jeffrey N. Rosenthal, left, and Huaou Yan, right, of Blank Rome.
Popularized by Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film “Minority Report”—which depicts a bleak future where a special police unit detects targets by video and arrests criminals before they commit their crimes—facial recognition technology allows computers to analyze an image or video of a human face to identify the person. Today, look at any modern iPhone with Face ID capabilities and you have just experienced such technology for yourself.
On May 14, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by police and other local government agencies. A month later, on June 27, Somerville, Massachusetts, became the second. And San Francisco’s Bay Area neighbors, Oakland and Berkeley, are currently considering similar bans.
