Minneapolis bans its police department from using facial recognition software

Minneapolis voted Friday to ban the use of facial recognition software for its police department, growing the list of major cities that have implemented local restrictions on the controversial technology. After an ordinance on the ban was approved earlier this week, 13 members of the city council voted in favor of the ban, with no opposition.

The new ban will block the Minneapolis Police Department from using any facial recognition technology, including software by Clearview AI. That company sells access to a large database of facial images, many scraped from major social networks, to federal law enforcement agencies, private companies and a number of U.S. police departments. The Minneapolis Police Department is known to have a relationship with Clearview AI, as is the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, which will not be restricted by the new ban.

The vote is a landmark decision in the city that set off racial justice protests around the country after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd last year. The city has been in the throes of police reform ever since, leading the nation by pledging to defund the city’s police department in June before backing away from that commitment into more incremental reforms later that year.

Banning the use of facial recognition is one targeted measure that can rein in emerging concerns about aggressive policing. Many privacy advocates are concerned that the AI-powered face recognition systems would not only disproportionately target communities of color, but that the tech has been demonstrated to have technical shortcomings in discerning non-white faces.

Cities around the country are increasingly looking to ban the controversial technology and have implemented restrictions in many different ways. In Portland, Oregon, new laws passed last year block city bureaus from using facial recognition but also forbid private companies from deploying the technology in public spaces. Previous legislation in San Francisco, Oakland and Boston restricted city governments from using facial recognition systems, though didn’t include a similar provision for private companies.