San Francisco may ban police, city use of facial recognition

San Francisco: San Francisco is on track to become the first US city to ban the use of facial recognition by police and other city agencies as the technology creeps increasingly into daily life.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote Tuesday on broad surveillance legislation that includes the ban.

Facial recognition technology is not new and has been used to run headshots through databases in search of suspects and to prevent identity fraud.

But recent advances in artificial intelligence have created more sophisticated computer vision tools that make it easier for police to pinpoint a missing child or a protester in a crowd.

Supporters of a ban say the technology poses a severe threat to civil rights. Opponents of a ban say police need tools to catch criminals.