Boston bans government use of facial recognition

Boston City Council has voted to ban the use of facial recognition by the municipality, joining a growing list of administrations to outlaw the tech. The decision comes amid a growing backlash against the software, which research shows consistently misidentifies people of color. An MIT study found that facial recognition algorithms designed by Microsoft, IBM, and Face++ made up to 35% more errors when detecting the gender of darker-skinned women. For light-skinned men, that error rate dropped was just 1%. Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who co-sponsored the law, said these biases made the tech unfit for use: It has an obvious racial bias and…

This story continues at The Next Web