Proposed Law Would Restrict Facial Recognition Use in Massachusetts

Proposed changes include creating a centralized statewide office staffed by people trained on the software’s vulnerabilities, to which local police departments can submit requests.

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it extremely difficult for investigators to use facial recognition in criminal cases.

Proposed changes include creating a centralized statewide office staffed by people trained on the software’s vulnerabilities, to which local police departments can submit requests. Such a restriction would likely delay results for weeks if not months.

Another part of the proposed law would prohibit using facial recognition without a warrant. This would likely end the use of the tool for developing leads and make it almost useless in criminal investigations.

β€œWe want to avoid fishing expeditions in which you put in an image of somebody and start searching for a match,” UMass Amherst computer science professor Erik Learned-Miller told WGBH. β€œYou want to have a warrant that says there's probable cause to believe that this particular individual may be involved in a crime. … Those kinds of basic rights that would prevent this from being overused, just the way we don't allow surveillance to be done on people that are not suspected of a crime.”