It will also be re broadcasted at a later date
on Comcast eight, RCN 82 SAS as per 196.
For a public testimony written comments
may be sent to the committee email
@ccc.go@boston.gov
and it will be made part of the official record.
This is an ordinance
that would ban the use of facial surveillance
by the city of Boston or any official in the city of Boston.
The proposal would also prohibit
entering into agreements, contracts
to obtain face-to-face surveillance with third parties.
I'm gonna turn it now over to the lead sponsors,
councilor Wu and councilor Arroyo.
And then I will turn it to my colleagues
in order of arrival, for opening remarks.
And just to acknowledge my colleagues
and I believe the order that I had so far,
again it will be councilor Arroyo,
councilor Wu, councilor Braden, councilor Bok,
councilor Mejia, councilor Campbell,
and then I had councilor O'Malley, councilor Essaibi George
and then I'm sorry, I started talking.
So other councilors have joined us.
MICHAEL: Good morning madam chair.
Councilor Flaherty was before me
councilor Edwards, thanks.
I apologize councilor Flaherty,
then councilor Campbell, then counselor melody
and councilor Essaibi George.
I will not turn it over to the lead sponsors.
Does that start with me?
CHAIR: Sure.
Thank you, madam chair.
I think we have excellent panelists
to kind of go into the intricacies
of the facial recognition ban.
But to just kind of summarize it,
this facial recognition band creates a community process
that makes our systems more inclusive
of community consents while adding democratic oversight,
where there currently is none.
We will be joining our neighbors
and Cambridge and Somerville.
And specifically when it comes to facial recognition tech,
it doesn't work, it's not good.
It it's been proven through the data
to be less accurate for people with darker skin.
A study by one of our panelists Joy Buolamwini,
researcher at MIT,
found that black women
were 35% more likely than white men
to be misclassified by face surveillance technology.
The reality is that face surveillance
isn't very effective in its current form.
According to records obtained by the ACLU,
one manufacturer promoting this technology Massachusetts
admitted that it might only work about 30% of the time.
Currently, my understanding
is that the Boston Police Department does not use this.
This isn't a ban on surveillance.
This is simply a ban on facial recognition surveillance,
which I think the data has shown doesn't work.
BPD doesn't use it because,
and I will allow commissioner Gross to speak on it.
But my understanding from what I've heard
and past comments from commissioner Gross
is that they don't wanna use technology
that doesn't work well.
And so this ban necessarily even a permanent ban,
it just creates a process where we are banning something
that doesn't have to be process
that doesn't have community trust
and doesn't have community consent
in which would require some democratic oversight
if they ever do want to implement it,
if the technology in the future ever does improve.
And so with that, I see the rest of my time.
Thank you, madam chair.
And thank you also to my co-sponsor councilor Wu.
Thank you very much madam chair.
Thank you also to councilor Arroyo
and all of the coalition partners
that have been working on this for many months
and providing all sorts of incredibly important feedback.
We scheduled this hearing many weeks ago at this point,
I think over a month ago.
And it just so happened that the timing of it now has lined
up with a moment of great national trauma.
And in this moment,
the responsibility is on each one of us to step up,
to truly address systemic racism and systemic oppression,
but the responsibilities,
especially on elected officials, policy makers,
those of us who have the power
and the ability to make change now.
So I am proud that Boston has the potential
to join our sister cities across Massachusetts
in taking this immediate step to ban a technology
that has been proven to be racially discriminatory
and that threatens basic rights.
We are thankful that Boston police
agree with that assessment
and do not use facial recognition,
facial surveillance today in Boston,
and are looking to codify that understanding
so that with the various mechanisms for technology
and upgrades and changing circumstances
of different administrations and personalities,
that we just have it on the books
that protections come first,
because we truly believe that public health
and public safety should be grounded in trust.
So the chair gave a wonderful description
of this ordinance.
I am looking forward to the discussion,
but most of all I'm grateful to colleagues
and everyone has con who has contributed
to this conversation,
as well as the larger conversation about
community centered oversight of surveillance,
which will be in a separate but related docket
that will be moving forward on the council.
Thank you very much.
Councilor Breadon, opening remarks.
Thank you.
Thank you, madam chair,
thank you to the makers of this ordinance.
I really look forward to the conversation this afternoon.
I'm very proud to participate in this discussion.
I think it's the proper and right thing to do
to really consider deeply all the implications
of new technology that hasn't been proven to be effective
before introducing it in any city in Massachusetts.
So I really look forward to learning more
and hearing from the panelists this afternoon, thank you.
CHAIR: Councilor Bok.
Ah, yes.
Thank you, madam chair.
And I hope everyone will forgive me
for being outside for a minute.
I wanted to just say,
I'm excited about this conversation today.
I think it's a piece of action we should absolutely take.
And I just wanna say that,
I think it's really important that this technology
has major shortcomings
and that also it has a racial bias builds into it.
Those are really good reasons not to use it,
but honestly, even if those did not hold,
I think that in this country,
we run the risk sometimes of just starting to do things
that tech new technology can do,
without asking ourselves like as a democratic populous,
as a community, is this something that we should do?
And I think in the process,
we as Americans have given up
a lot of our rights and privacy,
frankly as often as not to private corporations
as to government.
But I think that it's really important
to just remember that there's a true public interest
in a society that is built more on trust
than on surveillance.
And so I think it's really important
for us to draw this line in the sand
so that if the technology improves
and some of those arguments
that are based on a kind of its functionality
start to slip away, that we're still gonna have
a real conversation together
about how we wanna live in
and what kind of a society we want to be.
So to me, putting a moratorium ban like this
into place, makes a ton of sense.
And I'm excited for the conversation
and grateful to all the advocates.
Thank you so much madam chair
Thank you.
Councilor Mejia.
Yes, thank you.
Sorry about my audio.
Thank you chair, women Edwards,
and thank you to the makers, councilor Wu,
and I applaud you for your leadership on this issue.
For me this issue is personal and professional
as a Dominican woman who claims a black boots.
Facial recognition technology
misidentifies people like me by 35%.
We're in a time where our technology
is outpacing our morals.
We've got a 2020 technology with a 1620 state of mind,
but that's thinking.
As a city, we need to practice extreme caution
over facial recognition technology.
And we should be concerned
not only with this technology goes wrong,
but also when it goes right.
We have a lot of work to do
when it comes to building trust in our government.
Working against this facial recognition technology
is a good step and I'm happy to hear
there's pushback against this kind of surveillance
on all sides of the issue.
Like the makers of the ordinance mentioned,
now, right now, there's not a desire
to put facial recognition technology in place.
And this ordinance is an opportunity to put that into law.
I look forward to the discussion
and I hope to continue to push on this issue
alongside councilor Wu and Arroyo,
thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Councilor Flaherty.
MICHAEL: Thank you madam chair
and the sponsors for this hearing.
As I've stated in the past the technology updates
and advances have provided us with many advantages,
but at the same time,
they've also proven to be deeply flawed,
unreliable and disproportionally impacting
communities of color.
This technology,
just for everyone's full disclosure if you listening,
this technology is currently not being used by the BPD
for that reason and CAC commissioner is here
and good afternoon to the commissioner.
I appreciate the work that you've been doing
through all of this.
Whether it's just the day-to-day public safety,
rigors of your job,
or it's been through the COVID-19 response,
or it's been, most recently and tragically
in response to George Floyd's horrific death
and everything that has come from that.
I wanna make sure
that I'm gonna continue to remain supportive
of setting transparent limits in creating a public process
by which we assess the use of these technologies.
I know that we've been able to solve a lot of crimes
through video surveillance
and also through video, quite frankly,
and also they've led to justice for families
and someone that has lost a cousin due to murder,
but for, it was surveillance
and it was DNA that led to my family getting justice.
So looking forward to learning more about this
and the commissioner's perspective on it,
but also recognizing that collectively
we need to make sure that we're putting forth decisions
that make the most sense for Boston.
I'll get real parochial here.
Quite frankly, I'm not really concerned about Cambridge
and Somerville, I wanna make sure
that whatever we're doing in Boston is impacting
all of our neighborhoods.
The neighborhoods that I represent
as a city wide city councilor.
And making sure that we have community input,
most importantly.
We work for the people of Boston, as council
and obviously as the commissioner of police officers,
we work for the residents and the taxpayers of our city.
So they need a seat at the table
and we wanna to hear from them.
If the technology enhances
and it help us is public safety tool, great.
But as the time stands,
it's still unreliable and there are flaws to it.
So as a result that's where I'm gonna be on this.
Thank you madam chair.
Thank you very much.
Councilor Campbell.
Thank you, madam chair and thank you,
I know you're gonna run a tight ship
given what's all that's happening today,
including the funeral, of course for George Floyd.
So thank you very much.
Thank you also to, of course,
to the commissioner for being here,
given all that's going on.
I know you've been on the record in the past
with respect to this issue
and that not only does the department not have it,
but you understand the flaws of it.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you to my council colleagues,
but als most importantly the makers
for putting this forward.
I have been supportive of this since the very beginning,
when I hosted,
along with councilor Wu and counselor McCarthy,
a hearing on this very issue
along with some other surveillance technologies
and things that were possibly coming down the pipe.
So this was an opportunity for us
to have this conversation on what we could do proactively
to make sure that surveillance tools
were not put into place without a robust community process.
And of course, council input.
So back then I supported it and I support it now.
Again thank you commissioner, thank you to your team,
thank you to the makers and thank you madam chair.
And Aiden also says, thank you.
Thank you Aiden and thank you councilor Campbell.
councilor O'Malley.
Thank you madam chair.
Just very briefly wanna thank the makers,
councilor Wu and Arroyo for their leadership here.
Obviously I support the facial recognition ban.
Also grateful, wanna echo my thanks to the commissioner
for his comments and his opposition,
the fact that this isn't used.
So it's important that we codified that in such a way,
which again is the purpose of this hearing
and this ordinance and stand ready, willing
and able to get to work.
Thank you and look forward
to hearing from a number of residents,
our panelists, as well as a public testimony after, thanks.
Thank you very much, councilor Essaibi George.
Thank you madam chair,
and thank you to the commissioner
for being with us this afternoon.
I look forward to hearing from him
and from the panelists discussing this ordinance further.
I think that it is necessary
to ban this technology at this point.
I think that our colleagues have brought to the forefront,
over the last few years as have the advocates,
around the concerns regarding this kind of technology.
I appreciate the real concerns around accuracy and biases
against people of color women, children, the elderly,
and certainly reflective of our city's residents.
So we need to make sure that we're proactive
and protecting our residents
and having a deeper understanding
and appreciation of this technology
and understanding what this ordinance would mean
around that ban and following through with it.
Thank you ma'am chair.
Thank you very much.
I understand councilor Flynn is trying to get in
and there might be a limits.
I'm just saying that for our tech folks.
In the meantime, I'm going to read a letter
from city council president Kim Janey,
"Dear chairwoman Edwards, due to technical difficulties,
I'm unable to log in for today's hearing on docket 0683,
regarding an ordinance
banning facial recognition technology in Boston.
I will continue to work on the technical challenges
on my end and we'll join the hearing at a later time
if I am able, if I'm unable to join,
I'll review the recording at a later time.
I want to thank the makers councilors Wu and Arroyo
for their advocacy and continued leadership
on this critical issue.
I especially want to thank all the advocates
who are participating
for their tireless advocacy on this issue.
I look forward to working with advocates
to incorporate their ideas
and how we can push this issue moving forward.
It is clear we need policies in place
to protect communities that are vulnerable to technologies
that are biased against them.
I look forward to working with my colleagues
on this critical issue,
and we'll continue to fight for an agenda
that promotes and protects black lives.
Please read this letter into the record, thank you."
Sincerely Kim Janey.
I'm not sure if we've been joined by councilor Flynn.
I do know he was trying to get in.
In the meantime I did want to just do
some quick housekeeping as part of my introductory remarks.
Just to let people know again,
today's hearing is specifically
about this proposed ordinance
that would ban facial recognition technology.
We had a robust conversation about defunding the police,
discussing all aspects of the budget,
all of those different things just happen
and it was chaired by councilor Bok.
And I wanna make sure that our conversations are related,
that we do not take this precious moment on this legislation
and have it covered up by the other conversation.
I just want you to know that
and again, I will move the conversation
towards this ordinance.
There should be a copy of it.
People should have the ability
to discuss about this language in this ordinance.
Questions I have,
I do want to talk about, whether time is of the essence.
There seem to been some issue,
I'm concerned about whether we were entering a contract
that allowed for this.
So when the commissioner speaks,
I'd like for him to speak on that.
I'm not sure if there's a contract pending what's going on.
I also wanna make sure that folks understand
due to the fact that I think
we have possibly a hundred people signed up to speak.
We have a lot of folks
who are gonna be speaking on the panel.
I'm going to limit my colleagues to three minutes
in their first round.
And I'm gonna get the public to no more than two.
And I'm gonna try my best to get through that list.
So I see we've been joined by councilor Flynn,
councilor Flynn, do you have any opening remarks?
Thank you.
Thank you, counsel Edwards,
and to the sponsors and looking forward to this hearing,
learning, learning more about the proposal
and also interested in hearing
from the commissioner of police, commissioner Gross
and with the public as well.
Again, this is an issue that's that we all can learn from.
We can listen to each other, we can be respectful
and hear each other's point of view.
And that's what this city is all about,
is coming together and treating each other fairly.
And with respect, especially during difficult days
and on and on difficult issues.
I also know that our police commissioner
is someone that also listens to people
and he's in the neighborhoods and he talks
and listens to a lot of the concerns of the residents.
That's what I like most about the police commissioner,
is his ability to listen and treat people freely.
Again, I'm here to listen and learn about the proposal.
Thank you councilor Edwards for your strong leadership.
Thank you councilor Flynn.
I just wanna let people know,
we actually have a a hundred percent limit on the Zoom.
We have 118 people trying to get in.
So once you've testified,
could you at least sign out,
that allows for other people to get in.
Commissioner Gross you've been waiting.
So I'm gonna turn the microphone over to you.
I'm gonna ask you get right to the ordinance
and get to the trends and thoughts on that.
I'm happy to discuss any procedure.
Then we're gonna try and get to the panelists
and move back to the city council while you're still here.
Okay. Yes, thank you.
Good afternoon everyone.
And God bless Mr. George Floyd, may he rest in peace.
And for the record, I'm proud of Boston,
as they paid great homage and peaceful protest
and anything we can do to move our department forward,
working with our community.
You have it on record right here,
and now I'm willing to work with you councilors,
the mayor, in our great city.
So, thank you.
So I will start and thank you the chair
and the committee members and the makers,
councilor Wu and Arroyo.
I really thank you for inviting me to participate
in today's hearing regarding the ordinance
banning facial recognition technology in Boston.
As you can imagine the Boston Police Department
has been extremely busy meeting the current demands
of public safety from the COVID-19 pandemic
and the public rallies.
However, the department and I understand
the importance of the given topic,
I would like to request
that hearing remain on the given topic
and that we work together to find other times
to discuss the important issues regarding police relations,
national issues on police reform
and the ways that we can improve
our relationships here in Boston.
As has been practiced in the past,
we welcome a future opportunity
to discuss the ordinance language
and city council concerns in a working session
regarding technology policy
and potential privacy concerns.
My testimony today is meant to serve as a background
to BPD current practices
and identify potential technological needs.
The department for the record,
does not currently have the technology
for facial recognition.
As technology advances however,
many vendors have and will continue to incorporate
automated recognition abilities.
We have prohibited these features
as we have moved along in our advancements
with the intention to have rich dialogue with the community
prior to any acquisition of such a technology.
Video has proven to be one of the most effective tools
for collecting evidence of criminal offenses,
for solving crimes and locating missing
and exploited individuals.
Any prohibitions on these investigative tools
without a full understanding of potential uses
under strict protocols,
could be harmful and impede our ability
to protect the public.
The proposed ordinance defines facial surveillance to mean,
an automatic automated or semi-automated process
that assist in identifying or verifying an individual
or in capturing information about an individual
based on the physical characteristics
of an individual's face.
And to be clear,
that department has no desire
to employ a facial surveillance system
to generally surveil the citizens of Boston.
The department however notes a distinction
between facial surveillance systems
and facial recognition technology.
The department believes
that the term facial recognition technology
better describes the investigative nature
of the technology we believe would be useful to the city,
with the right safeguards and community input.
The department would,
as technology advances and becomes more reliable,
like the opportunity to discuss the utilization
of facial recognition technology
to respond to specific crimes and emergency situations.
And I would like to revisit everyone's thoughts
and remembrances of the Boston Marathon
and the most recent kidnappings.
Facial recognition technology to the best of our knowledge,
will greatly reduced the hours necessary
to review video evidence.
This would also allow investigators to move more quickly,
identify victims, missing persons
or suspects of crime through citywide camera recordings.
This technology, if acquired
would also allow for the compilation
and condensing a video to be done more efficiently.
Facial recognition technology
used with well-established guidelines
and under strict review,
can also provide a safer environment
for all in the city of Boston.
Creating a system in which evidence is reviewed
in a timely manner and efficiently
allows for police to intervene
and reduce levels of crime would be beneficial.
The department rejects any notion in the ordinance
that would whatever use facial recognition technology
in our response to COVID-19 pandemic.
And just for the record,
I'd like to repeat that,
the department rejects any notion in the ordinance
that we are or will ever use facial recognition technology
in our response to COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally,
it is important to note,
the department shares the concerns of our community
and our community concerns around privacy
and intrusive surveillance,
as it is the current practice with existing technology,
our intentions are to implement
any potential future advances
in facial recognition technology,
through well-defined protocols and procedures.
Some areas we consider, excuse me,
some areas we consider this technology may be beneficial,
are in identifying the route
and locations of missing persons,
including the suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia,
those suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia.
As well, missing children, kidnapped individuals,
human trafficking victims,
and the suspects of assaults and shootings.
Also the victims of homicide and domestic abuse.
Important to know,
we would like to work with the council and our partners
to clearly articulate the language
that could best describe these uses.
In section B2 with the proposed ordinance
that indicates there is some intention
to account for the use of this technology
to advance investigations
but the department police some additional language
referencing permitted uses is necessary.
We as well, would appreciate a working session
within the next 60 days,
to draft language that we can collectively present
to constituents and requesting interest groups
for feedback and input.
We also plan to use the public testimony
being provided in today's hearing
to assist in our decision-making.
I'd like to thank you for this opportunity
to provide this testimony
and your continued interest and time
in creating public forums,
around police technology and advancements.
That's my official statement that I read in.
And I'm telling you right now as an African-American male,
the technology that is in place today
does not meet the standards of the Boston Police Department,
nor does it meet my standards.
And until technology advances
to a point where it is more reliable,
again, we will need your input, your guidance,
and we'll work together to pick that technology
which is more conducive to our privacy
and our rights as citizens of Boston, thank you.
Thank you very much commissioner Gross.
Do you, just before I go on,
we're gonna go now to Joy Buolamwini
and I am so sorry for that Joy.
I apologize profusely for the butchering of your last name.
My'kel McMillen, Karina Ham, Kade Crawford, Kate,
Erik Berg, and Joshua Barocas.
But I wanted to ask the commissioner just very quickly,
you said you have suggested language
or that you would want to work on suggested language for B2.
No, I would want to work on it.
So keep in mind anything we do going forward,
as I promised for the last four years,
we want your input and your guidance.
Councilor Mejia you hit it on point.
This technology is not fair to everyone,
especially African-Americans, Latinos,
it's not there yet.
So moving forward,
we have to make sure everybody's comfortable
with this type of technology.
Thank you.
So now I'm gonna turn it over to some of the folks
who have called for to speak.
Hope we're gonna try and get through
as many of them as possible.
Commissioner, these are the folks who helped to push
and move this ordinance.
We really hope you can stay as long as you can
to hear them, also.
I'm looking forward to working with the folks
in the community.
Wonderful, thank you.
So Joy.
Do I?
Hello?
Oh, wonderful, Joy.
The floor is yours.
If you could take about three minutes or no more.
Sounds good.
So thank you so much madam chair Edwards,
members of the committee on government operations
and members of the Boston City Council
for the opportunity to testify today,
I am the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League
and an algorithmic bias researcher.
I've conducted MIT study
showing some of the largest recorded gender
and racial biases in AI systems sold by companies,
including IBM, Microsoft and Amazon.
As you've heard the deployment of facial recognition
and related technologies
has major civil rights implications.
These tools also have technical limitations
that further amplify harms for black people,
indigenous people, other communities of color,
women, the elderly, those with dementia and Parkinson's,
youth trans and gender non-conforming individuals.
In one test I ran,
Amazon's AI even failed on the face of Oprah Winfrey,
labeling her male.
Personally, I've had to resort to wearing a white mask,
to have my dark skin detected by some of this technology,
but given mass surveillance applications,
not having my face detected can be a benefit.
We do not need to look to China
to see this technology being used for surveillance
of protesters with little to no accountability,
and too often in violation of our civil and human rights,
including first amendment rights of freedom of expression,
association, and assembly.
When the tech works,
we can't forget about the cost of surveillance,
but in other contexts it can fail
and the failures can be harmful.
Misidentifications can lead to false arrest
and accusations.
In April 2019, a brown university senior
was misidentified as a terrorist suspect
in the Sri Lanka Easter bombings.
he police eventually corrected the mistake,
but she still received death threats.
Mistaken identity is more than an inconvenience.
And she's not alone, in the UK,
the faces of over 2,400 innocent people
were stored by the police department without their consent.
The department reported
a false positive identification rate of over 90%.
In the U.S. there are no reporting requirements
generally speaking, so we're operating in the dark.
Further, these tools do not have to identify
unique basis to be harmful.
And investigation reported
that IBM equipped the NYP
with tools to search for people in video,
by facial hair and skin tone.
In short, these tools can be used
to automate racial profiling.
The company recently came out
to denounce the use of these tools
for mass surveillance and profiling.
IBM's moved to stop selling facial recognition technology
underscores it's dangerous.
Due to the consequences of failure,
I've focused my MIT research
on the performance of facial analysis systems.
I found that for the task of gender classification,
IBM, Microsoft and Amazon
had air rates of no more than 1% for lighter skin men.
In the worst case,
these rates were to over 30% for darker skin women.
Subsequent government studies compliment this work.
They show that continued air disparities in facial analysis
and other tasks, including face recognition.
The latest government study of 189 algorithms,
revealed consequential racial gender
and age bias in many of the algorithms tested.
Still, even if air rates improve,
the capacity for abuse, lack of oversight
and deployment limitations post too great a risk.
Given known harms, the city of Boston
should ban government use of face surveillance.
I look forward to answering your questions.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Thank you so much
and to correct my horrible mispronunciation of your name.
Would you mind saying your full name for the record again?
Sure, my name is Joy Buolamwini.
Thank you very much Joy.
I'm gonna now turn over to My'Kel McMillen,
a youth advocate.
I'm also gonna set the clock three minutes, My'Kel.
God afternoon madam chair,
good afternoon city councilor,
good afternoon everybody else.
My name is My'Kel McMillen, I'm a youth advocate
I'm also an organizer [indistinct] which is from the east.
I just want to talk about on a little bit
about what's going on within the streets of Boston.
For centuries black folks
have been the Guinea pig in America,
from experiments with our bodies
to the strain on our communities,
it seems [indistinct]
Do I agree police are as involved?
Yes, there are no longer catching us glaze,
but catching poor black and brown folks.
On January, so I wanna talk about three years ago,
roughly January around 2017,
there were residents from my neighborhood that came up to me
that they asking a drone flying into the area
and they asked numerous times
and nobody could figure out who was flying the drone,
who's controlling it.
And so upon receiving his information,
I live across the street from a soda company,
and later on that night,
I seen officers playing with a drone
and I ended up taking the photos of their drone.
And it kind of jogged my memory back
that this was a drone
that lots of residents in my neighborhood
had seen and talked about.
That no one knew who was flying the drone.
It comes to my knowledge, it was the police.
So with doing some research
and reaching out to a friend over at ACLU
and we try to follow up a public records request,
which we were denied our first time,
and then eventually got it,
where the Boston police has spent the amount of $17,500
on three police drones.
And nobody knew about it from city council to the public.
It was kind of kept secret
and there was no committee oversight.
And these drones were flying illegally
in the side of a neighborhood and the breach of privacy,
The not knowing what information was being collected,
what was being stored, how it was being stored
that really scared a lot of folks in my neighborhood
and to the point that a lot of them didn't wanna speak up
because of past experience of dealing with abuse
and being harassed.
Nobody wanted that backlash,
but at the same time,
we have to be as residents
and have to empower one another and have to speak up.
And sometimes it has to be somebody regardless
if it's myself or another individual,
we have to hold people accountable.
And something that Monica Candace, who's another activist,
accountability has no colors to another,
regardless if you're white, black in a blue uniform,
you still have to be held accountable.
And then just to see that no one was held accountable
was a scary thing,
because it kind of just [indistinct]
Nobody ever gets caught accountable
because our voices are muffled by money
or just a knee in the neck, rest in peace to George Floyd.
That is it for my time, thank you all.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Perfect testimony.
And I really appreciate you speaking from the heart,
from your own experience
and also demonstrating how you've actually
had conversation for accountability
through your leadership.
So I wanna thank you for that.
Up next we have Karina Hem
from the Student Immigrant Movement.
Three minutes, Karina.
Hi everyone.
Thank you everyone for joining us today at this hearing,
my name is Karina Hem,
and I'm the field organizer
for the Student Immigrant Movement.
I would like to also thank our partners
who've been working on the facial recognition ban,
city councilors, Michelle Wu, Ricardo Arroyo,
Andrea Campbell, Kim Janey. Annesa Essaibi George,
along with ACLU of Massachusetts,
Muslim Justice League and Unafraid Educators.
So SIM is a statewide grassroots organization
by and for the undocumented youth.
We work closely with our members or our young people
to create trusting and empowering relationships.
At SIM we fight for the permanent protection
of our undocumented youth and their families
through collective action.
And one of the major role of the work
in the organizing that we do,
is to challenge these systems that continue to exploit
and disenfranchise the undocumented
and immigrant communities.
So I am here on behalf of SIM
to support the ban on facial recognition
because it's another system,
it's another tool that will intentionally
be used against marginalized community.
So the undocumented immigrant community
is not mutually exclusive to one particular group.
We have transgender people,
black, Latina, exmuslim, people with disabilities,
and it's so intersectional.
And so the stakes for getting this identified are high
because this creates a dangerous situation
for people who are undocumented.
And these programs are made to accurately identify
white adult males, living black and brown folks
at risk on top of living in marginalized community.
And so many of the young people I work with
are students who are in college
and many are still in high school.
Face surveillance technology is not meant for children,
and it's not meant for the young people
and law enforcement already uses it
to monitor the youth in places like Lockport, New York.
Their face surveillance system
has been adopted in their school district,
and they've already spent over a million dollars
in the system.
So you ask yourself,
but what is exactly the intent to have these surveillance?
Do you still have the right to their privacy
and have the right to live without constant infringement
and interference of law enforcement.
If another city allows facial surveillance
in their schools to happen,
the chance of that occurring here is high as well
if we do not ban facial recognition in Boston.
And we believe this because the youth,
the undocumented youth,
there are already not protected in their schools,
school disciplinary reports,
which currently have no guideline protocol or clear criteria
on what exactly school officers can write
are sent to the superintendent and their designee
to sign off and sent to the Boston Police Department.
And still we've seen that some of these reports
actually go straight to the police department
with no oversight.
And so this endangers the life of immigrant youth,
because Boston Police Departments share information
and databases with agencies like I.C.E.
So it creates a gateway to imprisonment
and deportation from any of these young folks.
And so adding facial surveillance into schools
and in the city would be used against those same students
who are already at risk
for being separated from their community.
We know that black and brown youth
experience depression every day,
and they already are deemed suspicious by law enforcement
based on their skin color and the clothes they wear,
the people they interact with in more.
And so adding facial recognition,
that's not even accurate to surveil our youth and families
will just be used to justify their arrests or deportation.
And through the policing system,
we were already asking for police officers
to engage with the youth in ways
that are just harmful to the youth development.
The city of Boston needs to stop criminalizing young folks,
whether they engage in criminal activity or not,
arresting them will not get to the root of the problem.
There are so many options
that are much safer and more secure for our youth,
for the families and their futures.
Banning facial recognition would meet law enforcement
has one less tool to criminalize our youth.
Thanks so much everyone.
Thank you.
Commissioner, I understand time it'd be of the essence,
but I'm really hoping you can stay till about 4:15, 4:30,
please, please.
I can stay until four, that's it.
I have to go at four, that long.
Okay, so-
I appreciate everyone's testimony as well.
I have a team we're taking notes.
So I don't think when I go that no one's taking notes.
We would really wanna meet again
and discuss on this technology.
I know that there are some councilors
that have some clarifying questions
and we have three more people to speak.
And so I am begging you, please,
if you can at least get to the lead sponsors,
councilor Wu and councilor Arroyo.
That'll be three, six, nine, 10.
That'd be probably 20 more minutes.
A little after four.
Okay. A little close for me.
[Gross laughs]
We're trying, we're trying.
I understand, I understand, go ahead.
Thank you, Kade.
Thank you chair.
My name is Kade Crawford.
I am the director of the Technology for Liberty Program
at the ACLU of Massachusetts.
Chair Edwards, members of the committee
and members of the city council,
thank you all for the opportunity
to speak on this crucial issue today.
We are obviously in the midst of a massive social upheaval
as people across Boston and the nation
demand that we ensure black lives matter
by shifting our budget priorities away from policing
and incarceration and towards government programs
that lift people up instead of holding them back.
And people are outraged because for too long
police departments have been armed to the teeth
and equipped with military style surveillance technologies,
Like the ones that My'Kel just referenced.
Even as our schools lack the most basic needs,
like functioning water fountains, nurses and counselors.
And even now during this pandemic,
as our healthcare providers lack the PPE they need
to protect themselves and us,
but our government cannot continue to act
as if it is at war with its residents,
waging counter-insurgency surveillance
and control operations,
particularly in black and brown neighborhoods
and against black and brown people.
We must act, we must not merely speak to change our laws,
to ensure we are building a free,
just an equitable future for all people in Boston.
So that said,
banning face surveillance in Boston is a no-brainer.
It is one small but vital piece
of this larger necessary transformation.
Face surveillance is dangerous when it works
and when it doesn't.
Banning this technology in Boston now
is not an academic issue.
Indeed the city already uses technology
that with one mere software upgrade
could blanket Boston in the kind of dystopian surveillance
currently practiced by authoritarian regimes
in China and Russia.
And as Joyce said,
even some cities right here in the United States.
Boston has to strike a different path
by protecting privacy, racial justice,
and first amendment rights.
We must ban this technology now,
before it creeps into our government, in the shadows,
with no democratic control or oversight
as it has in countless other cities,
across the country and across the world.
So today you already heard from pretty much
the world renowned expert
on racial and gender bias and facial recognition.
Thank you so much Joy for being with us today,
your work blazed a trail and showed the world
that yes, algorithms can in fact be racist.
You also heard from my My'Kel McMillen,
a young Boston and resident who has experienced firsthand,
what draconian surveillance
with no accountability looks like.
Karina Ham from the Student Immigrant Movement
spoke to the need to keep face surveillance
out of our public schools,
where students deserve to be able to learn without fear.
You're gonna hear a similar set of sentiments
from Erik Berg of the Boston Teachers Union
and shortly medical doctor and infectious disease expert,
Joshua Barocas will testify
to how this technology in Boston,
would inevitably undermine trust
among the most vulnerable people
seeking medical care and help.
Obviously that's the last thing that we need to do,
especially during a pandemic.
For too long in Boston, city agencies have acquired
and deployed invasive surveillance technologies
with no public debate, transparency,
accountability or oversight.
In most cases, these technologies,
which as My'Kel said, include drones,
but also license plate readers,
social media surveillance, video analytics software
and military style cell phone spying devices,
among many others.
These were purchased and deployed
without the city council's knowledge, let alone approval.
We have seen this routine play out
over and over and over for years.
This is a problem with all surveillance technologies,
but it is especially unacceptable
with a technology as dangerous
and dystopian as face surveillance.
It is not an exaggeration to say that
face surveillance would,
if we allow it destroy privacy
and anonymity in public space.
Face surveillance technology
paired with a thousands of network surveillance cameras
already installed throughout the city,
would enable any official with access to the system
to automatically catalog the movements,
habits and associations of all people at all times,
merely with the push of a button.
This is technology that would make it trivial
for the government to blackmail public officials
for seeking substance use treatment,
or to identify whistleblowers
who are speaking to the Boston Globe
or in its most routine manifestation
to supercharge existing police harassment
and surveillance of black and brown residents
merely because of the color of their skin
and where they live.
Using face recognition tech,
the police could very easily take photos or videos of people
at any of these Black Lives Matter demonstrations,
run those images through a computer program
and automatically populate a list
of each person who attended
to express their first amendment rights
to demand racial justice.
The police could also ask a computer program
to automatically populate a list of every person
who walked down a specific on any given morning
and share that information with I.C.E.
It could also be used
to automatically alert law enforcement,
whenever a specific person passes
by a specific surveillance camera anywhere in the city.
And again, there are thousands of these cameras
with more going up each week.
Yes, so we're, I'm so sorry.
You're over the three minutes.
Well, over the three minutes,
but I'm I...
and I have two more people plus trying to get this.
So I'm just letting you know if you could summarize.
All right, I'm almost done, thank you.
Sorry, chair.
So I'll just skip to the end and say,
we're at a fork in the road right now,
as Joy said, you know, major corporations,
including IBM and Google are now declining
to sell this technology and that's for good reason,
because of the real potential for grave human
and civil rights abuses.
We the people, if we live in a democracy
and need to be in the driver's seat
in terms of determining
whether we will use these technologies.
We can either continue with business as usual,
allowing governments to adopt
and deploy these technologies unchecked in our communities,
our streets, in our schools,
or we can take bold action now to press pause
on the government's use of this technology,
to protect our privacy
and to build a safer fewer freer future for all of us.
So please, I encourage the city council
to join us by supporting this crucial ordinance
with your advocacy and with your vote
and I thank you all for your public service.
Thank you very much, Erik Berg, three minutes.
Yeah, thank you.
And I'll get right to the point in the interest of time.
Thank you to the council
for taking this up and for allowing this time today.
And I'm here to speak today
on behalf of the Boston Teachers Union
and our over 10,000 members in support of the ordinance,
banning facial recognition technology in Boston
that was presented by councilors Wu and Arroyo.
We strongly oppose the use of this technology
in our public schools.
Boston public schools should be safe environments
for students to learn,
explore their identities and intellect and play.
Face surveillance technology threatens that environment.
The technology also threatens the rights of our BTU members,
who must be able to go to work
without fearing that their every movement,
habit and association will be tracked and cataloged.
To our knowledge,
this technology is not in use in our schools,
but we've already witnessed some experimenting with it.
Although it was unclear if it was authorized.
Two summers ago, members of the Boston Teachers Union,
who were working in the summer program,
contacted the union to let us know
that they were being asked to sign in
using an app called Tinder with face recognition features.
And the central office
didn't seem to know about this program,
and to this day,
we don't know how it came about.
While the district quickly stopped
using the photo portion of this app
and informed the union that all photos have been deleted,
this incident is indicative
of how easy it is for private security or HR companies
to sell a technology to a well-intentioned principal
or superintendent who may not have expertise
in the tech field.
Face surveillance in schools transforms all students
and their family members, as well as employees
into perpetual suspects,
where each and every one of their movements
can be automatically monitored.
The use of this technology in public schools
will negatively impact students' ability
to explore new ideas, express their creativity,
and engage in student dissent
and especially disturbing prospect
given the current youth led protests
against police violence.
Even worse, as we've heard,
the technology is frequently biased and inaccurate,
which raises concerns
about its use to police students of color,
academic peer reviewed studies,
show face surveillance algorithms
are too often racially based,
particularly against black women
with inaccuracy rates up to 35% for that demographic.
We know black and brown students
are more likely to be punished for perceived misbehavior.
Face surveillance will only perpetuate
and reproduce this situation.
When used to monitor children,
this technology fails in an essential sense
because it has difficulty
accurately identifying young people as their faces change.
Research that tested five top performing
commercial off the shelf face recognition systems
shows there's a negative bias when they're used on children,
they perform poor on children than on adults.
That's because these systems are modeled
through the use of adult faces
and children look different from adults
in such a way they can not be considered,
they're simply scaled down versions.
On top of this face,
surveillance technology regularly
misgenders transgender people,
and will have a harmful impact
on transgender young people in our schools.
Research shows that automatic gender recognition
consistently views gender in a trans exclusive way.
And consequently carries disproportionate risk
for trans people subject to it.
At a time when transgender children
are being stripped of their rights at a national level,
Boston must protect transgender kids in our schools.
Moreover, face surveillance in schools
will contribute to the school to prison pipeline,
threatening children's welfare,
educational opportunities and life trajectories.
Already, children from marginalized communities
are too often funneled out of public schools
and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems -
will inevitable this pipeline.
I'll get right to the end.
Finally, face surveillance technology
will harm immigrant families.
In this political climate,
immigrants are already fearful of engagement
with public institutions
and face surveillance systems
would further chill student and parent participation
in immigrant communities in our schools,
Boston schools must be welcoming and safe spaces
for all families.
The city of Boston must take action now
to ensure children and BTU workers
are not subject to this unfair,
biased and chilling scrutiny.
In order to protect young people
in our educational community,
we must stop face surveillance in schools before it begins.
Thank you very much for your attention
and your consideration.
Thank you very much.
We're getting there,
very, very close commissioner I promise.
Just one more person.
Then the two people who specifically said
they had some questions, we'll go right to them.
Joshua Barocas
Yeah, I will read quickly.
First of all, thanks for allowing me
to testify today regarding this important issue.
I should say that the views
that I'm expressing today are my own
and don't necessarily represent those of my employer,
but that said I'm an infectious disease physician
and an addictions researcher here in Boston.
As such, I spend a large majority of my time working
on solutions to improve the health and wellbeing
of vulnerable populations,
including people who are experiencing homelessness,
people with substance use disorders.
One thing that we know is that stigma and bias
are pervasive throughout our community
and lead to disparities and care for these populations.
These disparities were laid bare
and exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Well, we're all searching for answers
on how to best protect ourselves from this virus,
I truly fear that the use of facial recognition technology
will only serve to exacerbate existing disparities,
including those of racial, gender and socioeconomic.
If we use this very nascent and imperfect technology
to track individuals, I'm concerned
that it will only serve the marginalized people
and worse in health outcomes.
We've heard about the low accuracy rates.
We know about systemic racism,
as a public health issue
that's fueled by stigma bias and misinformation.
Additionally, Boston provides expansive services
for substance use disorders, including methadone treatment,
and it's imperative that we ban facial recognition software
to ensure that people seeking
substance use disorder treatment and mental health care
among other stigmatized health services may do so privately
and without fear.
If we allow this on many of our public cameras,
it would enable the government
to automatically compile lists of people
seeking treatment for substance use mental health
and as I said, other stigmas stigmatized health conditions.
This would have a chilling effect
and disproportionately affect
our most vulnerable populations.
I'll stop there and ask that we consider banning this.
Thank you so very much.
I'm gonna turn it over.
I misspoke earlier the lead sponsor, there's Michelle Wu,
and she mentioned that she has to move along very quickly.
So I wanted to, if it's okay, councilor Arroyo,
I'm gonna go ahead and go to councilor Wu real quick,
for specific questions.
Your good! Yeah, absolutely.
Councilor Wu.
Thank you madam chair.
And thank you so much commissioner
for making the time to be here.
We all know how many demands there are in your time.
And now we're asking for even more than you had alluded.
So very, very grateful that it means a lot
that you took the time and are the one at this hearing.
I also wanna note that you were the one at the hearing
in June, 2018 as well.
So we know that you've been part of this conversation
and supportive of this general idea for a long time.
So just to clarify on some of what you said,
you mentioned that you,
you referenced the technology upgrades,
that some current vendors that BPD works with
have for face surveillance.
So just to clarify,
has BPD upgraded to the next version of that software
and we're just choosing
not to use the facial recognition components of it,
or has the upgrade not been accepted
because it includes facial recognition?
To my knowledge, we have not upgraded,
but we anticipate that we will have to,
but we will not be using any components
of facial recognition.
And I guess the technology just isn't efficient enough -
When do you think the upgrade would likely happen?
No, I will get back to you.
And trust me, I wanna have a further meeting
so I can have my subject matter experts here.
And I'm gonna tick through,
'cause I wanna try to get you out of here
as quick as possible.
Secondly, so you drew a distinction
between face surveillance systems
and facial recognition technology.
So just to clarify,
does BPD, we don't use that.
You don't own it right now
because you haven't done that upgrade,
but does BPD work with other state or federal entities
that have face surveillance
or facial recognition technology?
Do you ever use the results of that technology
on any sort of databases?
To answer you more accurately,
I would have to find out.
I believe the state police
does have some form of facial recognition
and maybe the registry to.
Okay, the registry of motor vehicles.
Yes.
And so when state police or
we'll find out more potentially BPD
works with the RMB to run matches of photos
against their database.
Do you need any sort of warrants
or other approvals to do that before,
for let's say the state?
So I used to be part of the Bureau of Investigative
Services, to my knowledge,
it's only utilized to help assist in photo arrays.
So nothing past that.
Okay, could you just clarify what you mean by that?
So if you a victim of a crime
and we don't have that person under arrest,
what do we do have a potential suspect?
You have to pick,
you were allowed the opportunity
to try to identify the suspect of the crime.
And so to be fair,
to ensure that no innocent person is selected,
you put the suspects picture
along with several other suspects pictures
up to seven or more,
and then you see if the victim of the crime
can pick the suspect out of that photo array.
Okay, and so the RMB uses the face recognition
to provide those burdens.
I wanna give you an accurate answer.
So again, in our next meeting, you'll have your answer.
Thank you.
Are you aware of any state or federal regulations
that provide any sort of kind of restrictions
or reigning in guidance when it comes
to facial recognition technology
or face surveillance systems?
Nope.
Okay, and so given the absence of guidelines right now
with the federal state or city level
and the need to upgrade and the use by state police,
for example, are you supportive,
we're hearing you loud and clear
that you'd like to have further conversation,
we just wanna get your opinion now,
are you supportive of a city level ban
until there are policies in place potentially,
at other levels or specifically at the city level
to reign in surveillance overall?
Yes, I am.
I've been clear for four years.
We need your input, your guidance.
And I thank you to everyone that testified today.
I have a team taking notes
because I didn't forget that I'm African-American
and I could be misidentified as well.
And I believe that we have one of the most diversified
populations in the history of our city.
And we do have to be fair to everyone
that is a citizen of Boston.
We don't want anyone misidentified.
And again we will work with everyone here
because this is how we will be educated.
Yes, we're very grateful for your time.
I'm gonna see to the co-sponsor.
Thank you.
So, actually, is that fine chair?
I just wanna thank you commissioner
for supporting the facial recognition surveillance ban
and for taking the time to be here for the questions.
Councilor Wu asked many of them,
I have one specific one which is,
has the BPD used facial recognition in the past,
in any capacity?
No, not to my knowledge.
And I will review that, but not to my knowledge at all.
And BRC, does BRC have access
to facial recognition techniques?
Nope, not at all.
We don't use it and I anticipated that question
and we make sure that we're not a part of any,
BRC does not have facial recognition.
Okay, I think every other question
that I had for you today was asked by councilor Wu.
So I just thank you for taking the time to be here
and for supporting this, thank you.
Thank you, and before I go,
for the record, nothing has changed in my opinion
from four years ago,
until this technology is a hundred percent,
I'm not interested in it.
And even when it is a hundred percent,
you've committed to a conversation about it?
Absolutely, we discussed that before.
That you have.
It's not something that you can just implement.
[crosstalk]
It's important that we also get the input from the community
that we serve and work in partnership
so we can of course have a better quality of life.
And hat's inclusive of everyone's expectation of privacy.
So before you go,
I'm gonna do this one call out the panelists that just spoke
or to any city councilors.
One question that you may have for the commissioner
that you need to ask, do any of you have that?
Do either Joy, My'Kel, Karina, Kade, Erik, Joshua,
or to the other city councilors.
I'm trying to be mindful of his time
but I also understand
you guys also gave time to be here today as well.
And if you wanted to ask him representing BPD a question.
I see Julia Mejia has raised her hand,
to the panelists though,
who just spoke any questions?
I'm gonna go now to my colleagues to ask one question.
So that allows for him to go.
Okay, councilor Mejia
Yes, I just wanted to quickly thank commissioner Gross
for your time and just your steadfast leadership.
But I do have just a quick question before you go.
I just need some clarity,
is that you mentioned that you hope to keep this hearing
on the topic of the ordinance
and find other ways to adjust issues of police relations.
So a lot of people draw the direct link
between facial recognition
and relationships with the community.
Do you see that link?
And can you talk about how the police department
sees that link?
I'm just really curious about
how do we build relationships with the community
while also thinking about facial recognition?
Like, how do you reconcile that?
I can answer that,
the information I was given before
that we were going to discuss many subjects.
And so I thank you for eliminating this one,
but the only way you increase relationships
with the community is to have
hold hard discussions like this one.
You have to listen to the people that you serve,
because everyone throws around
the moniker community policing.
I believe that's become jaded.
And so I've created a bureau of community engagement
so that we can have these discussions.
And again, I don't forget my history.
I haven't forgotten my history.
I came on in 1983 and I've gone through a lot of racism,
was in a tough neighborhood growing up,
and I didn't forget any of that.
And as you alluded to earlier, some of the city councilors,
I'm always in the street talking to people,
I get a lot of criticism of law enforcement in general,
but I believe in if you want change, be the change,
you can only change with the people.
So, I am looking forward to further conversation
and to listening to testimony on how we can improve
our community relations,
especially not only throwing the time civil unrest,
but we're in the middle of a pandemic as well.
And so police departments
should not be separated from the community.
You have to have empathy, sympathy, care and respect.
A lot of people have lost jobs,
and we must keep in mind about socioeconomics,
fairness for employment.
A lot of those things
directly affect the neighborhoods of color.
And I'm glad that we are increasing
our diversity in the communities.
And we currently currently have organizations in Boston
that directly speaks to the people.
The Latino Law Enforcement Organization,
the Cabo Verde Police Associations,
the Benevolent Asian Jade Society.
Our department is increasing in diversity,
and the benefit of that,
the benefit of having representation
from every neighborhood we serve,
is that it will improve relationships.
So again, that's why I'm looking forward
to a working session and my team is taking notes
because everybody's everybody's testimony is important.
Trust me, people like you that worked hard
for everyone's rights.
I wouldn't be here
as the first African-American police commissioner,
if we didn't have folks
that exercise their First Amendment Rights.
Thank you, commissioner Gross,
I have a clarifying question.
And then I just wanted to note,
this impacts the staying in.
So for folks who, commissioner Gross has alluded
to a working session,
just to give some clarification for those watching,
that is when we actually get down
to the language of the ordinance
and work down to the comments is what I say
and how to do that.
And so what commissioner Gross is asking
that we have that conversation within the next 60 days,
which I'm fine with doing that,
I'll just check with the lead sponsors.
I did wanna make sure I understood
what in terms of timing is going on with the contract,
is BPD entering into a contract that has this technology?
There was a timing issue
that I thought was warranting this hearing
happening very fast.
Maybe the lead sponsors could also answer this question.
I was confused,
if someone could explain what was the...
there's a sense of urgency that I felt that I was meeting
and I'm happy to meet it.
Just if someone either, I saw you Kade, you nodded.
Let me just figure out what this contract issue is Kade.
Sure councilor, I'd be happy to address that.
We obtained public records from the city a while back
showing that the Boston Police Department
has a contract with a company called BriefCam
that expired on May 14th.
And the contract was for version 4.3 of BriefCam software,
which did not include facial surveillance algorithms.
The current version of BriefCam's technology
does include facial surveillance algorithms.
And so one of the reasons that the councilors
and the advocacy groups behind this measure
were urging you chair to schedule this quickly
is so that we could pass this ban fast
to ensure that the city
does not enter into a contract to upgrade that technology.
Thank you, commissioner Gross,
where are we on this contract?
Yep and thank you.
That's exactly what I was gonna comment.
The older version of BriefCam
did not have facial recognition
and I believe that the newer version does.
BriefCam works on the old version
on condensing objects, cars,
but I would definitely check on that contract
because I don't want any technology
that has facial recognition
and that's exactly what we were gonna check on
and so my answer right now is no at this point.
I've just read into testimony,
if we obtain technology such as that,
I should be speaking to all of you
and to what that entails,
if we have BriefCam and it has facial recognition
[indistinct] that allows for facial recognition, no.
And if someone did, if we did go into a contract,
would I have the ability to show you
that that portion that does have facial recognition,
that that can be censored?
That that is not, excuse me, poor choice of words
that that can be excluded.
And so I'm not comfortable with that contract
until I know more about it.
I don't want any part of facial recognition.
But as I read into testimony,
all the technology that's going forward now
in many fields is like,
hey we have facial recognition
and I'm like not comfortable with that.
And so BriefCam, yeah the old version,
we hardly ever used it.
And there is discussion on the new version
and I'm not comfortable
with the facial recognition component of that.
Thank you very much.
And thank you very much Kade for the background
and understanding both of you, and understanding.
I felt a sense to move fast and I'm moving fast,
but I was trying to make sure I understood what for.
I really do have to go.
Yes, thank you very much.
Thank you all for your input.
Will there someone be taking notes or is there someone,
I guess Neil from the mayor's office will be taking notes.
And I have my own team taking notes right now.
Excellent, thank you very much.
Thank you for your testimony.
If it weren't for advocates, such as everyone
on this Zoom call, I wouldn't be here in this capacity.
So thank you.
Thank you very much commissioner.
Thank you everyone take care.
Okay, thank you very much.
And so we have a still a robust conversation to have
amongst ourselves about the language, about the goals,
whether it goes far enough, if anyone opposes this ban,
and I want people to understand
if there is someone who disagrees with a lot of us,
this will be a respectful conversation
and that person will be welcome to have their opinion
and express it as every single one of us
has been able to do.
So I'm gonna continue now,
there's a list of folks who have signed up to speak
and I'm gonna continue down that list
and keep them to no more than three minutes
and then we're gonna open up.
Oh, I'm so sorry, I apologize.
Before I go down a list, I know my councilor,
my colleagues also may have questions or concerns
or may wanna voice certain things about the legislation.
And I apologize.
[Lydia giggles]
So I'm just so amped to get to the public testimony.
So I'm gonna go ahead and go in order of arrival,
the two lead sponsors have asked questions already
of the commissioner.
Did they have the councilor Wu or councilor Arroyo
have any questions for the panelists that just spoke?
If not, I'll move on to my other colleagues.
MICHELLE: I'm happy to defer to colleagues,
thank you madam chair.
Very well, councilor Arroyo.
The only question I would have,
which is more to, I think Kade from the ACLU,
is whether or not she has any idea
where we are on that contract.
From what I heard from commissioner Gross,
it sounded like he couldn't confirm
the timeline for that contract,
whether or not it's been signed or not signed,
what's going on with that contract.
Does any panelists here have any information
on whether or not that contract is,
what the status of that is?
Thanks for the question, councilor Arroyo.
Regrettably no.
We filed a public records request
with the Boston Police Department on May 14th,
so that was about a month ago,
asking just for one simple document
for the existing contract
that the Boston Police Department has with BriefCam
and they haven't sent it to us yet.
So, and we've prided them multiple times about it,
including on Friday saying,
it would be a real shame
if we had to go to this hearing on Tuesday
without this information and we still haven't received it,
so we do not.
Thank you.
That all councilor Arroyo?
Very well, councilor Breadon.
Thank you.
This has been very informative,
very good questions from my colleagues.
One question I had was, other agencies, federal agencies,
are they using facial recognition?
And if they are they sharing that information
with our police department?
Does anyone know the answer to that question?
I can speak to that, Joy Buolomwini if you're still on,
you may wanna speak to some of those too.
So the ACLU we nationwide have been filing FOIAR requests,
Freedom of Information Act Requests
with various federal agencies
to learn about how the federal government
is using this technology and how they're sharing
information derived from the technology,
with state and local law enforcement.
We know for example, that in the city of Boston,
the Boston Police Department works closely
not only with I.C.E,
which has been the subject of much consternation
and debate before this body,
but also with the FBI,
through something called the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The Boston Police Department
actually has detectives assigned to that JTTF unit,
who act as federal agents.
So one concern that we have is that
even if the city of Boston banned
face surveillance technology for city employees,
certainly it would be the case that the FBI
and other federal agencies
would be able to continue to use this technology
and likely to share information that comes from it
with the Boston Police Department and other city agencies.
Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about that
at the city level,
which is why the ACLU
is also working with partners in congress
to try to address this level at the federal level as well.
Thank you, that answered my question
and thank you for your work on this very important issue.
Councilor, madam chair that's all the questions
I have for now.
Thank you for very much, councilor Bok.
So, Mejia.
I'm so sorry, councilor Bok.
Thank you councilor Breadon.
Next is councilor Bok, I apologize.
Thank you, thanks councilor Edwards.
My question was actually just, it's for the panelists.
Whoever wants to jump in,
the police commissioner was making a distinction
between facial surveillance and facial recognition systems
and what we might be banning or not.
And I'm just wondering,
I don't know the literature in this world well enough
to know if that sort of a strong existing distinction,
whether you think this piece of legislation in front of us
bans one or the other,
whether you think we should be making that distinction,
I'd just be curious for anybody to weigh in on that front.
Got it, so when we hear the term facial recognition,
oftentimes what it means it's not so clear.
And so with the way the current bill is written,
it actually covers a wide range
of different kinds of facial recognition technologies.
And I say technologies plural
to emphasize we're talking about different things.
So for example, you have face recognition,
which is about identifying a unique individual.
So when we're talking about face surveillance,
that is the issue.
But you can also have facial analysis,
that's guessing somebody's gender
or somebodies age or other systems
that might try to infer your sexuality or your religion.
So you can still discriminate
even if it's not technically face recognition
in the technical sense.
So, it's important to have a really broad definition.
You also have face detection.
So if you think about weapon systems
where you're just detecting the presence of a face
without saying a specific individual
that can still be problematic.
You also have companies like Face Suction
that say, we can infer a criminality
just by looking at your face,
your potential to be a pedophile, a murderer, a terrorist.
And these are the kinds of systems
that companies are attempting to sell law enforcement.
So it's crucial that any legislation
that is being written,
has a sufficiently broad definition
of a wide range of facial recognition technologies, right?
With the plural so that you don't get a loophole,
which says, oh, we're doing face identification
or face verification, which falls under recognition.
So everything we're doing over here doesn't matter,
but it does.
So thank you so much for that question
because this is an important clarification.
Great, thanks so much.
Was there anybody else who wanted to comment on that front?
No, okay, great.
Thank you, that was really helpful Joy.
Madam chair, I'm mindful of the public testimony,
so that'll be it for me.
Thank you very much councilor Bok,
councilor Mejia.
Thank you again to the panelists
for educating us beforehand
and always sharing all of this amazing information
and data and research that informs our thinking every day.
I am just curious
and at the same time a little bit worried
about, just kind of like,
how we can prevent this from ever passing ever.
Because it seems to me that
the way it's been positioned is that it's the right now,
because it's not accurate,
but I'm just curious what happened
if you've seen other cities or just even around the world
or any other incidences
where this has kind of slipped in the radar and has passed.
I don't know if I'm making any sense here but...
Basically the bottom line is what I'm trying to understand
is that here we are standing firm
and banning facial recognition,
from what I understand at this point,
our commissioner is in agreement,
because of the issue of accuracy, right?
How can we get ahead of this situation
in a way that we can right this ordinance
to ensure that regardless of whether or not it is accurate,
that we can still protect our residents.
Do you get what I'm trying to say?
I do councilor Mejia and thank you for that.
I can address that quickly.
The council can't bind future city councils, right?
So I agree with you.
I think that this technology is dangerous,
whether it works or it doesn't.
And I think that's why the city of Boston
ought to take the step to ban its use in government.
I can promise you that as advocates,
we will show up to ensure
that these protections persist in the city of Boston,
as long as I'm alive. [Kade laughs]
And I think that's true of many of my friends and colleagues
in the advocacy space.
But some cities, some states
have considered approaches of
for example passing a moratorium
that expires after a few years,
we did not choose that route here,
in fact because of our concerns
that I think are identical to yours.
It's our view that we should never wanna live in a society
where the government can track us
through these surveillance cameras
by our face wherever we go or automatically get alerts,
just because I happened to walk past the camera
in a certain neighborhood.
That's a kind of surveillance
that should never exist in a free society.
So we agree that it should be permanently banned.
Thank you for that.
And then the other question that I have is,
I know that, where the city council
and all of the jurisdiction is all things
that deal with the city,
but I'm just wondering what if any examples
have you heard of other,
like maybe within the private sector
that are utilizing or considering to utilize this as a form?
Is there anything, any traction or anything
that we need to be mindful of?
Happening outside of city government, if you will.
Joy, do you wanna speak
to some of the commercial applications?
Sure, I'm so glad you're asking this question
because facial recognition technologies
broadly speaking are not just in the government realm.
So right now, especially with the COVID pandemic,
you're starting to see more people make proposals
of using facial recognition technologies in different ways.
Some that I've seen start to surface are,
can we use facial recognition for contactless payments?
So your face becomes what you pay with.
You also have the case
of using facial analysis in employment.
So there's a company HireVue
that says we will analyze your facial movements
and use that to inform hiring decisions.
And guess what we train on the current top performers.
So the biases that are already there can be propagated
and you actually might purchase that technology
thinking you're trying to remove bias.
And so there are many ways in which these technologies
might be presented with good intent,
but when you look at the ways in which
it actually manifests, there are harms
and oftentimes harms that disproportionately fall
on a marginalized group.
Even in the healthcare system.
I was reading research earlier
that was talking about ableism
when it comes to using some kinds of
facial analysis systems
within the healthcare context,
where it's not working as well
for older adults with dementia.
So the promises of these technologies
really have to be backed up with the claims.
And I think the council can actually go further by saying,
we're not only just talking about
government use of facial recognition technologies,
but if these technologies
impact someone's life in a material way, right?
So we're talking about economic opportunity.
We're talking about healthcare,
that there needs to be oversight
or clear restrictions depending on the type of application,
but the precautionary principle press pause,
make sense when this technology is nowhere near there.
Thank you.
For that and I'm not sure if I got the Jabil,
but I do have one more,
You got the, you got the...
[crosstalk]
But I'll wait.
Sorry, thank you so much to you both, thank you.
Councilor Flaherty.
Okay, councilor Campbell said
she was having some spotty issues with her internet.
So if she's not here,
I'm gonna go ahead and go to councilor O'Malley
who I'm not sure he's still on.
I'm here madam chair.
There you are, councilor O'Malley.
Thank you.
Yeah, I will be brief because I think it's important
to get to the public testimony,
but it seems to me that this sounds
like a very productive government operations hearing.
It sounds to me that obviously
there's a lot of support across the board
and it looks as though the commissioners
asking for one more working session,
which seems to make sense
and his comments were very positive.
So I think this is a good thing.
So thank you to the advocates.
Thank you to my colleagues,
particularly the lead sponsors
and the commissioner for his participation this afternoon.
And thank you for all the folks
whom we will hear from shortly.
That's all I've got.
Thank you, councilor Essaibi George.
Thank you madam chair.
And I do apologize for earlier,
taking a call and unmuting myself somehow.
I apologize for that.
I hope I didn't say anything inappropriate
or share any certain secrets.
Thank you to the advocates
and to the commissioner for being here today.
And thank you to the advocates
who have met with me over the last a few months ago,
over a period of a few months,
just really learned a lot through our times together,
especially from the younger folks.
I am interested in some,
if there is any information
that the commissioner is no longer with us.
So perhaps I'll just forward this question to him, myself.
But my question is around the FBI's evidence standards
around facial recognition technology.
I wonder if they've released that.
And then through the chair to the makers,
we had some questions around section B and two,
and perhaps we can discuss this in the working sessional,
or I'll send this to you ahead of time,
but it does talk about section B part two reads,
"Nothing in B or one shall prohibit Boston
or any Boston official from using evidence related
to the investigation of a specific crime
that may have been generated
from face surveillance systems."
So we're just wondering what types of evidence
are we allowing from here
and what situations are we trying to accommodate.
Just the specific question that we came up with
as an office, looking through that.
So I'll share that with the makers of this ordinance
to understand that a little bit better.
But if any of the panels have information
on the FBI standards regarding,
if they've shared their standards.
That is my question for this time.
Thank you ma'am chair.
I can answer that quickly
and then Joy may also have an answer.
But one of the issues here
is that police departments across the country
have been using facial recognition to identify people
in criminal investigations for decades now actually,
and then not disclosing that information
to criminal defendants, which is a due process violation.
And it's a serious problem
in terms of the integrity of our criminal justice process
in the courts and defendant's rights to a fair trial.
So the FBI standards that you're referencing
one of the reasons, at least as far as we understand it
and I don't work for the police department,
but one of the reasons as far as we understand it,
that police departments have not been disclosing information
about these searches to criminal defendants,
is that there is no nationally agreed upon forensic standard
for the use of facial recognition technology
in criminal investigations.
And so my understanding is,
police departments and prosecutors fear
that if they were to disclose to courts
and criminal defendants,
that this technology was used to identify people
in specific investigations,
that those cases would basically get thrown out of court
because the people who performed the analysis
would not really be able to testify
to their training under any agreed upon national standard
for evaluating facial recognition results
or using the technology more generally.
I can't answer your other question about that exemption.
It is meant to address basically wanted posters,
because for example, if the FBI runs facial recognition
on an image of a bank robbery suspect
and then produces a wanted poster
that has that person's name on it
and shares with the Boston Police Department,
obviously the BPD is not going to be in a position to ask
every single police department in the country,
where did you get the name attached to this picture?
And so that's what that exemption is meant to address.
There have been some concerns
from some of our allied organizations
that we need to tighten that up
with a little more extra language
to make clear that that does not allow the BPD
to use the RMV system for facial recognition.
And we will be suggesting some language
to the committee to that effect.
And just to echo a little bit
of what Kade is sharing here,
I do wanna point out that in April, 2019,
what the example of the student being misidentified
as a terrorist suspect, you had that photo shared.
And even though it was incorrect,
you have the ramifications of what happens
because of the presumption of guilt.
And so this is why I especially believe
we should also be talking about systems
that try to infer criminality
using AI systems in any kind of way.
Because again, the presumption of guilt
then adds to the confirmation bias
of getting something from a machine.
So, I think in the working session,
will there be improved language
around tightening that piece up.
Yes, we have some suggestions.
Yeah, thank you, thank you ma'am chir.
You're welcome, councilor Flynn.
Wasn't sure if you had any questions.
Thank you, thank you councilor Edwards.
I know I had a conversation awhile back
with Erik Berg from the teacher's union about the subject,
and I learned a lot
and I learned a lot from listening to the advocates
this afternoon.
My question is, I know Joy covered it a little bit,
but besides for criminal investigations,
what are the reasons that the government
would want surveillance cameras.
Surveillance, cameras, councilor Flynn,
or facial recognition technology specifically?
Both.
Well, my understanding is government agencies,
including the Boston Transportation Department
use surveillance cameras for things like traffic analysis,
accident reconstruction.
So there are non-criminal uses for surveillance cameras.
I'm not aware of any non-criminal uses in government,
at least for facial facial surveillance,
except in the,
I would say so-called intelligence realm.
So that would mean not a criminal investigation,
but rather an intelligence investigation,
for example of an activist
or an activist group or a protest or something like that.
Okay.
Can besides government,
what are the purposes of facial recognition
that businesses would want to know?
Then they might use it in a store,
but what are some of the other reasons
private sector might use them.
Sure, so speaking to private sector uses
of facial recognition,
oftentimes you see it being used for security
or accessing securing access to a particular place.
So only a particular employees can come in.
Something that's more alarming
that we're seeing with commercial use,
is the use in housing.
And so we have a case even in Brooklyn,
where you had tenants saying to the landlord,
we don't want to enter our homes with our face,
don't install facial recognition technology.
They actually won that case,
but not every group is going to be so successful.
So you can be in a situation
where your face becomes the key.
But when your face is the key and it gets stolen or hacked,
you can't just replace it so easily.
You might need some plastic surgery.
So we see facial recognition technologies
being used for access in certain ways.
And again, the dangerous use of trying
to predict something about somebody.
Are you going to be a good employee?
You have companies like Amazon,
saying we can detect fear from your face.
And so thinking about how that might be used as well.
The other thing we have to consider
when we're talking about commercial uses
of facial recognition technologies,
is oftentimes you'll have companies
have general purpose facial recognition.
So this then means other people can buy it
and use it in all kinds of ways.
So from your Snapchat filter
to putting it for lethal autonomous weapons.
You have a major range
with what can happen with these sorts of technologies.
Pardon me councilor.
I would just jump into also reiterate
that this ordinance only applies to government conduct.
It would not restrict in any way,
any entity in the private sector from using this technology.
But that said, some other uses,
I don't know if you've ever seen the film "Minority Report,"
but in that film, Tom Cruise enters them mall
and some technology says to him,
"Hello, sir, how did you like the size small underwear
you bought last time?"
So that's actually now becoming a reality as well,
that in the commercial space, at stores,
for marketing purposes,
we are likely going to see
if laws do not stop this from happening,
the application of facial surveillance
in a marketing and commercial context
to basically try to get us to buy more stuff.
And to underscore that point,
you have a patent from Facebook,
which basically Facebook has so many of our face prints.
We've been training their systems for years.
The patent says, given that we have this information,
we can provide you background details
about somebody entering your store,
and even give them a trust worthiness score
to restrict access to certain products.
This is a patent that has been filed by Facebook.
So it's certainly within the realm
of what companies are exploring to do.
And you already have companies
that use facial recognition technologies
to assess demographics.
So you have cameras that can be put into shelves.
You have cameras that can be put into mannequins.
So you already have this going on
and Tacoma in Washington,
they even implemented a system
where you had to be face checked
before you could walk into a convenience store.
So this technology is already out there.
Well thank you.
I know my time is up.
I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation
'cause I have a couple more questions,
but I'll ask them at another time.
But again, thank you to the advocates
and thank you to councilor Edwards.
Thank you.
So it's between me and public testimony.
So I'm gonna just put my three questions out there
and then we're gonna go right down the list of folks
who have signed up in RSVP.
Again to those folks who are gonna come
after you've testified,
we were maxed out in our limit of people
who could participate.
So if you're willing to testify and then also sign out
and watch through YouTube
or watch you and other mechanisms
to allow somebody else to testify,
that would be very helpful to this process.
I'm looking specifically at the issue of enforcement
in this statute or in this ordinance.
And it says no evidence derived there from
maybe received in evidence in proceeding
or before any department or officer agency regulatory body.
I want to be clear if the police received this evidence,
could a prosecutor use it in court.
So - That's my question.
So that's my issue.
There seems to be no actual evidence prohibition
for use in court against somebody.
The other issue or concern I have
is a provision violations of this ordinance
by a city employee, shall result in consequences
that may include retraining, suspension, termination,
but they're all subject to provisions
of collective bargaining agreements.
So all of that could be gone away
if their union hasn't agreed
to that being part of the disciplinary steps
for that particular employee.
So to me that signals the patrolmen
and other unions of folks
who are part of need to need to have this as part of their,
a violation of contract or violation of standard,
I think maybe I'm wrong.
And then finally, Joy, your testimony
about the private sector has really hit me.
Thank you so much.
I'm particularly concerned about this.
I'm a twin.
Facebook tags my sister in all of my pictures automatically.
I mean I'm a twin, councilor Essabi George has triplets.
So for those, we're called multiples, you're all singletons,
you were born by yourself.
We share birth, multiples have you know,
and so naturally I'm concerned about this technology.
Not that my sister is inclined to do any criminal activity,
but she may go to a protest or two, I don't know,
but either way, the point is,
I'm concerned about the private actor and how they interact.
And I'm particularly concerned
is how far this will go down the line,
the chain supply chain, right?
'Cause we have $600 million in contracts
for all sorts of things for the city of Boston.
If we have a contract with a cleaning company
that requires the workers to sign in
with facial recognition, right?
So how far down the line can we go with our money?
Now I understand time is of the essence.
And that might be a big,
big question that we can work out in the working session.
I'm particularly concerned about the courts.
So if you wanna just focus on that one, thank you.
Thank you, councilor.
So just very quickly,
we are unclear on what the city council's power is
to control the prosecutor's office.
I think we'll look more into that,
we'll look closely at that.
On the second question, I agree.
We need to look at the BPA agreement,
which I understand expires the summer.
And then finally on the private sector concerns,
I share them.
Again, we wanna get this government ban
passed as quickly as possible.
The ACLU supports approaches like that,
that the state of Illinois has taken.
They passed the nation's strongest
consumer facing biometrics privacy law.
It's called the Biometric Information Privacy Act,
BIPA.
BIPA essentially prevents private companies,
any private companies,
from collecting your biometric data
without your opt-in consent.
And that's not, I clicked a button
when I was scrolling through a terms of service,
it's you actually have to sign a piece of paper
and give it to them.
So we need a law like that right here in Massachusetts.
Thank you.
So at this point,
I'm gonna turn it over to public testimony.
I have some folks who have already committed
and asked to speak today.
I'm gonna go through them.
I'm going to, it's already quarter to five.
I'm going to try and end this hearing no later than six.
So that's an hour and 15 minutes
to move through public testimony.
And I'm gonna try,
I'm gonna have to keep folks to two minutes
as I said before,
because there are a lot of people signed up.
So, of the folks who've signed up,
I will go through that list.
Then I'm gonna invite people to raise their hands
who may not have signed up directly,
who would also like to testify.
All right, so I have on the list, Bonnie Tenneriello
from the National Lawyers Guild.
After her I have Callan Bignoli
from the Library Freedom Project and Maty Cropley.
Those are the three folks lined up.
Let's see.
Kaitlin, is there a Bonnie?
Okay well, I see Callan right now ready to go.
So I'm gonna go ahead and start with Callan
if you wanna start and your two minutes has begun.
Sure, hi, I'm Callan Bignoli,
I am a resident of West Roxbury
and a librarian in the Boston area.
And I am speaking on behalf
of the Library Freedom Project Today.
So thank you to the chair
and thank you to all of city council
for the chance to testify today
in this important piece of legislation.
So, the Library Freedom Project is a library advocacy group
that trains library workers to advocate
and educate their library community
about privacy and surveillance.
We include dozens of library workers from the U.S.,
Canada and Mexico,
including eight librarians from Massachusetts.
These library workers educate their colleagues
and library users about surveillance
by creating library programs, union initiatives, workshops,
and other resources inform and agitate for change.
And facial recognition technology
represents a class of technology that is antithetical
to the values of privacy
and confidentiality of library workers.
As library staff, we understand that part of our work
is to represent these values and the services
and resources we provide to our library community
in order to reduce the harm of state and corporate scrutiny.
As we understand this,
we can see the social and economic imperatives
that privilege some and marginalize others
that are encoded into many computer systems
and applications.
This is a result of the structure
of our technology industry,
which prioritizes the interests of management,
venture capitalists and stockholders,
who are mostly white men.
The racial and gender biases
inherent in face surveillance technology
are indicative of those values
and they describe how moneyed interests seek to shape
or reinforce racist and gender depressions
by creating computer systems
that extend the reach of profiling
through the exercise of capital.
Democratic direct worker and community control
over the development acquisition
and practices of surveillance and surveillance technology,
is an urgent priority to protect safety
and privacy and our neighborhoods and schools.
So the Library Freedom Project
supports this urgently necessary ordinance
to ban facial recognition technology in Boston
for the safety and privacy
of those who were working in the city and who live here.
we urge the council to rest control over surveillance -
Oh, two minutes is up. Oops!
Two minutes is up, so If you wanna summarize.
I have one, one more sentence.
We can not allow Boston to adopt authoritarian,
unregulated and bias surveillance technology, thank you.
Thank you very much, Bonnie,
I don't know if Bonnie's available,
if not I see Maty is available.
So I'm gonna go ahead and start your two minutes, Maty.
Thank you very much.
Thank you councilor Edwards
and thank you to the city council
and all the panelists for taking up this important issue.
My name is Maty Cropley, I use they/them pronouns.
I'm a teen librarian and a bargaining unit member
of the Boston Public Library Professional Staff Association,
MSLA local 4928 AFT.
Our union of library workers
supports a ban on facial recognition in Boston.
In voting to do so,
our union recognizes that facial recognition
and other forms of biometric surveillance
are a threat to the civil liberties
and safety of our colleagues and of library users.
Our library ethics of privacy and intellectual freedom
are incompatible with this invasive technology.
We recognize that facial recognition
and other biometric surveillance technologies
are proven to be riddled with racist,
ableist and gendered algorithmic biases.
These systems routinely misidentify people of color,
which can result in needless contact with law enforcement
and other scrutiny, essentially automating racial profiling.
We recognize the harm of surveillance for youth in our city,
especially black, brown and immigrant youth.
Unregulated scrutiny by authorities
leads to early contact with law enforcement
resulting in disenfranchisement, marginalized futures
and potential death by state violence.
We recognize that public areas such as libraries,
parks, and sidewalks exist as spaces
in which people should be free to move,
speak, think inquire, perform, protest,
and assemble freely without the intense scrutiny
of unregulated surveillance by law enforcement.
Public spaces exist to extend our rights
and provide space for the performance
of our civil liberties, not policing.
A ban on face surveillance technology
is critically important for the residents
and visitors to the city of Boston.
Our union encourages you to ban
the use of face surveillance in the city of Boston
by supporting and passing this very crucial ordinance.
I'd like to thank you for your time.
And we are the Boston Public Library,
Professional Staff Association.
Thank you very much.
I understand that Ms. Bonnie is available.
She's under a name Linda Rydzewski,
and we're gonna pull her up.
I'll check when she's available.
After her will be the following three testifiers,
Nikhill Thorat, Nour Sulalman and professor Woodrow Hartzog.
First, Bonnie.
She's under Linda Rydzewski, sorry.
Linda Rydzewski
I am so sorry, I've had a technical problems.
This is Bonnie Tenneriello,
on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild.
And I had to sign in with my office account
and I am not representing Prisoner's Legal Services
and I couldn't change the screen name once I was signed in.
Am I audible to everyone?
You're on and you have two minutes.
Okay.
I'm speaking on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild,
Massachusetts Chapter,
which for over 80 years as fought for human rights,
and we're deeply concerned over the dangers
of facial surveillance.
We strongly support this ordinance.
Facial recognition deployed through cameras
throughout a city can be used
to track the movements of dissidents
and anyone attending a protest as others have observed.
Our history and the National Lawyers Guild
shows that this danger is real.
We have defended political dissidents
targeted by law enforcement,
such as members of the Black Panther Party,
American Indian Movement,
Puerto Rican Independence Movement
and we're recently here in Boston,
occupied Boston Climate Change activists,
those opposing a straight pride event
and Black Lives Matter.
We know that the dangers of political surveillance
and political use of this technology are real.
The National Lawyers Guild
also helped expose illegal surveillance
in the Church Commission 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings.
We know from this experience
that this can be used to disrupt
and prosecute political protest.
People must be able to demonstrate
without fear of being identified and tracked afterwards.
I will not repeat what others have said
very articulately about just the basic privacy concerns
of being able to walk through a city,
without having cameras track your identity
and movements throughout the city,
nor will I repeat the excellent testimony
that was given about the racial bias in this technology.
But on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild,
I will say that we cannot tolerate a technology
that perpetuates racism in law enforcement,
as tens of thousands of people
take to the streets calling for racial justice.
We're at a historical moment when our society is demanding
and this council is considering a shift away
from control and policing of communities of color
and low-income communities
and towards community directed programs
that channel resources to jobs, healthcare, education,
and other programs that create true safety.
We reject facial surveillance
and we urge the council to pass this ordinance.
Thank you very much.
So up next we have Nikhill Thorat.
Sorry, if I mispronounced your name.
No harm, you got that right.
So thank you chair and to the amazing speakers before me.
My name is Nikhil, I work on at Google Brain in Cambridge.
So I specifically work in the area
of machine learning fairness and interpretability.
So this is sort of the stuff that we do.
So I'm here as a citizen,
and I am very much in favor of the ordinance
banning facial recognition by public officials
here in Boston.
So modern AI algorithms are statistical machines.
They base predictions off patterns and data sets
that they're trained on, there's there's no magic here.
So any bias that stems from how a data set is collected,
like non-representative collection of data
for different races
because of historical context,
gets automatically reflected in the AI models predictions.
So what this means is that it manifests as unequal errors
between subgroups, like race or gender.
And this is not theoretical,
it's been studied very deeply
by many AI researchers in this field
who have been on this call.
There's a federal NISD,
a National Institute of Standards and Technology Study
that looks at almost 200 facial recognition algorithms
and found significant demographic disparities
in most of them.
And there's another paper by Joy here, Gender Shades,
that looked at three commercial classification systems
and found that there are
35% of the time incorrect results for dark-skinned females
versus only 0.8% incorrect for light-skinned males.
This is, this is horrible, right?
So these mistakes can't also be viewed in isolation.
They will perpetuate bias issues
by informing the collection
of the next generation of datasets,
which are then again used
to train the next generation of AI models.
Moreover, when mistakes are made either
by a machine or by a human being,
we need to be able to ask the question,
why was that mistake made?
And we simply haven't developed robust tools
to be able to hold these algorithms
to an acceptable level of transparency,
to answer any of these critical questions.
Deployment of these systems
will exacerbate the issues of racial bias
and policing and accelerate the various social inequalities
that we're protesting to innocent people will be targeted.
The threshold for deploying these systems
should be extremely high,
one that's arguably not reachable beyond accuracy,
beyond a hundred percent accuracy idea.
Data would have to be public
and there would have to be actionable algorithmic oversight.
This is an incredibly high bar and we are nowhere near that,
both algorithmically and societaly.
Along with this ordinance,
we must start laying the groundwork
for a rigorous criteria for future technology
as it is an inevitable conversation.
But first we must pass the ordinance
banning facial recognition in Boston.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much,
following Nikhill we have Nour Sulalman.
Sorry again for mispronunciation.
It's all good.
Thank you council members
and authors of the ordinance for your service to the city.
My name is Noue Sulalman Langedorfer,
and I use she/her pronouns.
I'm a resident of Jamaica Plain,
and I'm here in my capacity as a private citizen.
I won't repeat what everyone else said,
but I will say that the use of facial recognition
by law enforcement today, is especially disturbing
due to the epidemic of police violence in this country
and the dysfunctional relationship it has
with black and brown people in the city.
And with all due respect,
I'm unconvinced by the distinction made
between facial surveillance and facial recognition.
I'm even more disturbed or I am disturbed
that the commissioner does not know
if the police department uses facial recognition software.
I asked the council to consider supporting
that the ordinance established a total ban
on the use of facial recognition software
in all public spaces, including by law enforcement,
malls and shopping centers, retail spaces,
restaurants open to the public, state government buildings,
courts, public schools, schools funded by the state,
on public streets and in places of employment,
as a condition of employment
and as a condition of landlords leasing rental properties.
The ban should also apply to the use
and purchase a facial recognition software
by any state agency operating in Boston,
including law enforcement
and I further or to the council to consider adopting a ban
on the use of private DNA databases by law enforcement
and all remote surveillance systems,
including those that recognize individual gates.
Information gathered through the aforementioned technologies
should not be deemed admissible in civil, criminal
or administrative proceedings
or serve as a basis for granting a search warrant.
Thank you madam chair.
Thank you very much.
I have a professor Woodrow Hartzog.
Okay, two minutes.
Thank you so much, dear councilors,
thank you for allowing me the opportunity
to speak in support of the ordinance.
Banning face surveillance in Boston.
I am a professor of law and computer science
at Northeastern University,
who has been researching and writing
about the risks of facial recognition technologies
for over seven years,
I make these comments in my personal academic capacity.
I'm not serving as an advocate
for any particular organization.
Please allow me to be direct,
facial recognition technology
is the most dangerous surveillance tool ever invented.
It poses substantial threats to civil liberties,
privacy and democratic accountability.
Quite simply the world has never seen anything like it.
Traditional legal rules, such as requiring legal process
or people's consent before surveillance could be conducted,
will only entrench these systems,
lead to a more watched society
where we are all treated as suspects all the time.
Anything less than a ban
will inevitably lead to unacceptable abuse
of the massive power bestowed by these systems.
That is why I believe that this ordinance
is justified and necessary.
There are many ways that law enforcement's
use of facial recognition technology can harm people.
Government surveillance
has disproportionately targeted marginalized communities,
specifically people of color,
facial recognition will only make this worse
because it is inaccurate and bias
based along racial and gender lines.
And while facial recognition is unacceptable
and it's biased and error prone,
the more accurate it becomes,
the more oppressive it will get.
Accurate systems will be more heavily used and invested in
further endangering the people of Boston.
Use of facial recognition seems likely to create
a pervasive atmosphere of chill.
These tools make it easier to engage in surveillance,
which means the more surveillance can and will occur.
The mere prospect of a hyper surveil society
could routinely prevent citizens
from engaging in First Amendment protected activities,
such as protesting and worshiping,
for fear of ending up on government watch lists.
Facial recognition also poses a threat
to our ideals of due process,
because it makes it all too easy
for governments to excessively enforce minor infractions
as pretext for secretly monitoring
and retaliating against our citizens
who are often targeted for speaking up like journalists,
whistleblowers and activists.
The net result could be anxious and oppressed citizens
who were denied fundamental opportunities and rights.
For the reasons outlined above,
I strongly support the ordinance
banning facial recognition surveillance in Boston.
It's the best approach for preventing
an Orwellian future
and ensuring that the city of Boston
remain a place where people can flourish
and civil liberties from a protected.
Thank you so much, professor.
We have coming up, Alex Marthews, Emily Reif,
Jurell Laronal.
Those three folks, I don't know if they're ready to go.
But we'll start, I see Jurell, I see Alex.
Go ahead Alex, Marthews.
Hi.
I don't wish to echo what other excellent advocates
have been saying,
but I am here representing Digital Fourth,
restored fourth Boston,
where she is a volunteer based
advocacy group on surveillance and policing issues
in the Boston area.
I wanna highlight some comments of commissioner Gross,
in addition to our testimony.
Commissioner Gross seems to recognize the racial biases
and limitations of this technology as it stands now,
but he says it's improving and he holds out hope
that it will be more accurate in the future.
And that perhaps at some future point,
the Boston City Council should reconsider
whether it will be appropriate
to implement facial recognition technology.
The problem with this is that
a 100% accurate facial recognition technology system
would be terrifying.
And it would represent the death of anonymity in public.
In terms of the effect of facial recognition technology
on legislative terrorists themselves,
there have been a number of studies now
that show that current facial recognition technologies
are perfectly capable
of misidentifying legislators as criminals
and these systems being 100% accurate
will pose even more worrying risks about that.
As city councilors,
where are you going when you're going in public,
are you meeting with social justice groups?
Are you meeting with immigrant advocates?
Are you meeting with God forbid,
police reform and down to kit accountability groups?
Are you doing something embarrassing perhaps
that could be used to influence your votes
on matters of public interest
or matters relating to the police budget?
The risk of these things happening are very real,
if it is to be implemented in the future.
And the only appropriate response
is for today's city council to ban this technology.
Thank you very much.
I believe, I don't know if Emily is available,
but I do see Jurell, Jurell would you like to go?
Thank you.
Thank you, Boston City Council for having this platform.
I wanna thank you.
Thank you and a shout out to the expert advocates
on the subject for shedding light on the subject
that me and many of us are not fully versed in.
What I am well versed in it though,
is the reality surrounding
the Boston Police Department's history
and the negative impact that they have had
on the black or brown Bostonian's for decades.
My name is Jurell Laronal,
I'm a formerly incarcerated black man
from a heavily police commerce neighborhood of Dorchester.
I'm a community organizer for Families for Justice as Halen
and I'm here to support the ordinance
banning facial recognition technology in Boston
presented by councilors Wu and Arroyo.
First, what are we talking about?
We are talking about a force whose actions
and racial profiling techniques have been documented,
tried in court and notoriously known for targeting
and terrorizing those from my disinvested communities.
We are talking about militarization to intimidate,
force their well on black and brown citizens
of the Commonwealth.
A force by their own field interrogations
and observation records,
show almost 70% of them were black residents
in a city that's only around 25.2% black.
So we're talking about taking the same force
and further funding them
and equipping them with another weapon
that would definitely be used to further oppress, target
and incarcerate our sons and fathers
and daughters and mothers.
My organization is currently supporting the appeals
and release efforts of black men and their families,
who have been incarcerated since the seventies
due to a racist profiling and racist misidentification.
When I think about racial recognition software,
which at best is predatory and inaccurate,
I don't see a solution and I don't see safety.
I see yet another form of racial bias
and another way of police
to cause harm in my community.
Today our city's historical racial profiling issue
with, somebody said it earlier,
with the federal government study
that the algorithm, my fault,
failed to identify people of color
and children and elderly and women.
I see that it needs to be banned
because we can't continue condoning and reassuring
and fueling other generations of black and brown
men and women from Dorchester Roxbury and Mattapan,
to more trauma and more incarceration.
Investment in our communities
through community led processes,
is the only thing that we need,
not facial recognition tech.
Oh these bees are messing with me, sorry about that.
No matter what level that technology reaches and thank you.
That's all I have to say.
I'm gonna keep it quick.
Thank you very much.
I really do appreciate it.
And I think, again speak from the heart
about their own experience
and specifically talk about how it would impact them,
I do appreciate that.
Not that I don't appreciate the experts
but I'm telling you there's nothing better
than hearing about how residents are directly impacted.
Thank you.
I have also on the list, Cynthia Pades,
I don't have a name,
but I have an organization called For the People Boston.
I don't think we have either one.
There is.
Oh, I see a Marco, Marco Staminivich.
Marco, ready to go?
Marco!
Sure. Okay.
How is it going everyone.
Thank you to the council and the panelists
for allowing me to speak.
So I'm a machine learning engineer
working in an adjacent field
and a resident of Jamaica Plain
and I'm here today as a private citizen.
So this is my first time speaking at a public hearing,
so cut me some slack.
Although I'm not an expert
on service on the surveillance aspect and the applications,
I am familiar with the technology aspect of this stuff.
So I felt the need to testify today
because of the gravity of this issue.
Although the technology may seem benign upon first glance,
this is an extremely powerful and dangerous tool.
So to me this amounts to basically
a form of digital stop and frisk,
and it's even more dangerous
since it can be kind of constantly running,
constantly working anywhere at all times,
kind of tracking folks.
This seems like a clear violation
of the Fourth Amendment to me.
As many commenters and panelists today have noted,
in addition, as many folks have noted today,
the technology is certainly not perfect
and it's riddled with biases based on the data
that it was trained on and how it was trained
and by the folks that trained it.
And although this is an important thing to note,
this would really be a moot point
when evaluating these technologies for deployment.
Because while a poorly functioning system is bad
and introduces issues,
a perfectly functioning system would be much, much worse
and would basically signal a world
where we could be tracked out of hand
at any time that police or government wanted.
So that's really what I wanted to say.
And I wanted to kind of state my support
for a ban on any type of facial recognition technology
for use by the police or the government.
And that we should disincentivize the research
and development of, send clear signal
to disincentivize the research and development
of these types of systems in the future.
Thank you.
Thank you, it was perfect on time,
for the first time participating.
We really appreciate it.
I hope that this is not your last time.
We are dealing with a lot of different issues.
Your voice is definitely welcome, thank you so much.
Up next I have,
I'm gonna name Will Luckman followed by Lizette Medina,
and then also a Nathan Sheard, I apologize again,
if I mispronounce your name,
feel free to just state your name again.
For folks who have already testified,
again, since we're over capacity,
if you sign out and then watch on YouTube
that allows for someone else to get in line to also speak.
So just letting you know that
that's what we're trying to do.
So I will now turn it over.
I believe Will's ready to go.
And you have two minutes Will.
Thank you. good afternoon.
My name is Will Luckman and I serve as an organizer
with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project or STOP
and STOP advocates and litigate
to fight discriminatory surveillance.
Thank you councilors for holding this hearing today
and for proposing this crucial reform.
Today, my oral remarks are an excerpt of written testimony
being entered into the record.
Facial recognition is biased, broken, and when it works
antithetical to a democratic society.
And crucially, without this ban,
more people of color will be wrongly stopped by the police
at a moment when the dangers of police encounters
have never been clearer.
The technology that drives facial recognition
is far more subjective than many realize.
Artificial intelligence is the aggregation
of countless human decisions codified into algorithms.
And as a result, human bias can affect AI systems,
including those that supposedly recognize faces
in countless ways.
For example, if a security camera learns
you are a suspicious looking, using pictures of inmates,
the photos will teach the AI
to replicate the mass incarceration of African-American men.
In this way, AI can learn to be just like us
exacerbating structural discrimination
against marginalized communities.
As we've heard,
even if facial recognition worked without errors,
even if it had no bias,
the technology would still remain antithetical
to everything the city of Boston believes in.
Facial recognition manufacturers are trying
to create a system that allows everyone to be tracked
at every moment in perpetuity.
Go to a protest, he system knows,
go to a health facility, it keeps a record.
Suddenly Bostonians lose the freedom of movement
that is essential to an open society.
If the city fails to act soon,
it will only become harder to enact reforms.
Companies are pressuring local state and federal agencies
to adopt facial recognition tools.
BriefCam, the software powering Boston's surveillance
camera network, has released a new version of their software
that would easily integrate
invasive facial recognition tools.
Although the commissioner
says he will reevaluate the new version on offer.
He also expressed interest in waiting
until the accuracy of the technology improves
or making exceptions for facial recognition use right now.
To definitively and permanently avoid the issues
with facial recognition that I've raised here,
we need comprehensive ban now.
And I'll conclude on a personal note.
I live and work in New York City,
but I was born in Boston and raised in Brooklyn,.
it pains me to see the current wave of protests
roiling the area,
because it demonstrates the bias
and unequal law enforcement practices
I remember from my youth, have yet to be addressed.
I know that the people of the Commonwealth
want to see a change,
and I believe that the council is on their side.
In practice, inaccuracies aside,
facial recognition systems lead to increased stops
for people of color, increased stops means
an increase in opportunity for police violence and abuse.
We must recognize that Black Lives Matter
and to do so we must realize
that technology doesn't operate in a neutral vacuum.
Instead it takes on the character
of those building and deploying it.
I encouraged the council to respond
to their constituents demands for police reform
by immediately banning the use
of this harmful technology in Boston.
Thank you. Thank you very much Will.
Lizet Medina.
Hi, good afternoon.
My name is Lizet Medina, I'm here as a private citizen.
I actually am pretty new to all of this.
This week I've found out
from the Student Immigration Movement,
kind of what's going on.
And I just wanted to voice my support for this ban.
I think for personally, as an immigrant,
and speaking toward like the presence
of facial recognition technology in the school system,
I think especially where we have so many conversations
with like the school to prison pipeline.
This tool could be used to facilitate
that kind of work in racially profiling
and profile of our students.
And I think now more than ever,
we have this point in time a decision to make
in protecting our residents of color,
black and brown residents and students
as they live in and try to navigate the various systems
that are already putting pressure on them.
And so I think, especially in light of recent events,
this is really a stand to support
residents of color in Boston,
over possible pros that could be looked at in this.
And I also think it's troubling
that the commissioner doesn't seem
to be clear about What's kind of going on with this.
In addition that it also isn't clear
that there is even a surveillance of whether or not,
this could be used already, that kind of thing.
So I think one, I'm just so thankful
that this conversation is being had,
that this is open to the public
and that I just wanted to voice my concern
for this being a tool for racial profiling
and my support in the ban.
Thank you.
Very much.
Next is Nathan Sheard.
Again I apologize if I mispronounced your name.
You have two minutes Nathan, go ahead.
No, you said it perfectly, thank you.
So my name is Nathan Sheard
and thank you for allowing me to speak
on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
and our 30,000 members.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation,
strongly supports legislation
that bans government agencies and employees
from using face surveillance technology.
We thank the sponsors of this ordinance
for their attention to this critical issue.
Face surveillance is profoundly dangerous for many reasons.
First, in tracking our faces,
a unique marker that we can not change,
it invades our privacy.
Second, government use of the technology in public places
will chill people from engaging
First Amendment protected activity.
Research shows and courts have long recognized
that government surveillance
and the First Amendment activity has a deterrent effect.
Third surveillance technologies have an unfair,
disparate impact against people of color, immigrants
and other vulnerable populations.
Watch lists are frequently over-inclusive,
error riddled and used in conjunction
with powerful mathematical algorithms,
which often amplify bias.
Thus space surveillance is so dangerous
that governments must not use it at all.
We support the aims of this ordinance
and respectfully seek three amendments
to show that the bill will appropriately
protect the rights of Boston residents.
First, the bill has an exemption for evidence
generated by face of bills
that relates to investigation of crime.
If that respectfully ask that'd be amended
to prohibit the use of face surveillance enabled evidence
generated by or at the request
of the Boston Police Department or any Boston official.
Second, the private right of action
does not provide the shipping for a prevailing plaintiff.
Without such fee shipping,
the only private enforcers will be advocacy organizations
and wealthy individuals.
You have to be eff respectfully ask that the language
be included toward reasonable attorney fees
to a prevailing plaintiff.
Third, the ban extends to private sector
use of face surveillance conducted with a government permit.
The better approach as Kade has offered earlier,
is to use face surveillance is used only
with informed opt-in consent.
Thus you have to respectfully requests
that the language be limited
to prohibiting private sector permitting
for the use of face surveillance recognition
at the government's request.
And closing EFF, once again thanks to the sponsors.
Look forward to seeing an ordinance pass
that bans government use of face surveillance in Boston
and will enthusiastically support the ordinance banning
face recognition technology in Boston,
if it is amended in these ways, thank you.
Nathan, I just wanna make sure I notes
on your suggestions.
And I wanna make sure you had three,
which is the ban that used by the BPB,
no exemptions, period.
Two, that currently because [indistinct]
doesn't allow for fee shifting our attorney fees,
it really does put it on either individuals
to take it on their own without having any kind of,
I guess partner care or support that helps be funded.
And then three to extend to private actors,
essentially down the supply chain
where the city of Boston can tell private actors
that contract with us.
Because one of the reasons I am always saying this,
one of the issues is how far we can go.
I mean, we can't regulate Facebook,
but we can regulate where money goes.
So I'm assuming spot that.
Yeah, so just to reiterate,
so the First Amendment that we would suggest
is that in right now,
there's an exclusion for forever for evidence
and Kade spoke earlier
to the fact that that's in reference to,
if they receive something from the federal government
or one to post or what have you.
But to make sure that it's amended
to tighten that up a bit and say that,
as long as that information isn't requested
or created at the request of the Boston police forums,
that's the first one.
The second one is the fee shipping.
So that it's not just the EFF and the ACLU
and wealthy individuals that have the power
to make sure that it's enforced.
So folks can find attorneys to support them
because the attorneys will be compensated for that time.
And finally, on the third.
And I think that this speaks to your greater question,
right now it's it prohibits the offering of a permit
to a private company, agency person, what have you,
whereas we would tightened up to say that
that a permit could be provided
as long it wasn't being provided
for face surveillance to be collected at the behest
or at the request of the Boston Police Department.
So really making sure
that we're speaking back to the fact
that like private use would be better protected
by something similar to
the Biometric Information Privacy Act in Illinois
that requires; informed, opt-in and concept
from the individual,
rather than simply saying
that no private doctor can do space.
Thank you.
That was a great clarification.
I'm gonna go now to our next speakers.
Thank you very much.
I have a Sabrina Barosso, Elmeda and Christina Vasquez.
So if we have.
Hi folks, thank you so much.
Just to let folks know, Christina is not with us.
Some folks had to leave because they have to work,
but so hi everyone, hi city councilors.
My name is Sabrina Barroso.
I am the lead organizer for the Student Immigrant Movement.
The first undocumented immigrant youth led organization
in the state of Massachusetts.
We believe that all young people are powerful
and that when you are supported and have space
and investment to grow,
they flourished into the leaders of today and tomorrow.
At SIM, we are invested in protecting
and working on behalf of the undocumented youth
and for families of Massachusetts.
That's why I'm here with you all today
and I would like to make clear
that we must prohibit the use of facial recognition,
technology and software in the city of Boston.
For far too long the Boston Police Department
has been allowed to have full flexibility
and freewill over how the police and surveil our communities
and the consequences are devastating.
Our people are being criminalized and funneled into prisons,
detention and deportation.
We need full community control over the police.
And this is a key move to bringing power to our people.
Right now, there are no laws
that control what the BPD can purchase for surveillance
or how they use it and when I learned this,
I was scared because I thought about the history
between the BPD and families like mine.
And I thought about the people that I love
and that the people I care about.
And I thought about the people who are constantly harassed
and targeted by law enforcement simply for existing.
So if you ask me,
facial recognition is not to be trusted
in the hands of law enforcement,
that tracks, monitors, hyper surveils,
black and brown communities,
and that puts immigrants and activists,
youth under constant scrutiny and criminalization.
Councilors, would you really trust a police department
that shares information to I.C.E?
That's share student information to I.C.E as well.
That has led to the deportation of students
that exchange emails saying happy hunting with I.C.E.
And that has historically targeted
black and brown youth to invade their personal space,
their bodies and their privacy with stop and frisk.
There is not a shame to separate youth
from their and their families from their communities
and then end up pinning, injustices and crimes on us.
The BPD says that they don't use spatial surveillance now,
but they have access to it.
And they have a $414 million budget to buy it.
Right now, our communities need access
to funding for healthcare, housing and so many other things
and the list goes on.
For years, residents of Boston have been demanding
to fund things that truly matter to them
and we have to invest in things
that are not face surveillance that doesn't even work
and is irrelevant to keeping our community safe.
We must invest in intentional restorative justice practices,
healthcare, mental health and resources
to prevent violence and distress.
Facial surveillance would end privacy as we know it
and completely throw off the balance
and power between people and their government.
Listen to youth and listening to our community,
and let's follow the lead of young people
who are addressing the deeper issue
of what is to criminalize our people
and putting the power in the hands of the people,
especially when it comes to governing surveillance.
Thank you all so much.
Thank you very much
and it'S like Christina's not available, Sabrina.
Yeah, she's not available.
Okay, Ismleda.
I'm Ismleda and a member of the City Media Movements.
Today I'm here to testify in support
of ban in facial recognition technology in Boston.
This will establish a ban of government use
of face surveillance in the city of Boston.
Boston must pass this ordinance to join Springfield,
Somerville, Cambridge, Brooklyn and North Hampton
in protecting racial justice and freedom of speech.
The feather of study published in December 2019,
found that face recognition algorithms
are much more likely to fail
when attempted to identify the faces of people of color,
children, the elderly and women.
That means that technology only reliably works
on middle aged white men.
It very small fraction of busters precedents.
As a citizen of Boston,
it is clear to me that this type of technology
is not okay to use in our communities.
The fact that this technology
is used to control specifically in communities of color,
makes my family and me feel unsafe,
as well as the other families
that live within this communities.
Black and brown kids are put into databases
that are used against them without redness or reason.
This interrupts our education and limits our future.
Kids shouldn't be criminalized or feeling unsafe.
Black and brown kids should be able to walk on the street
without the fear of knowing what's going to happen.
And it shows how this surveillance
is used to target black and brown communities.
The racial profiling in technology
is one of the many forms of systematic racism.
Immigrant youth in this city do not trust the police
because we know that they are very close with I.C.E.
We know that they sent a student information to I.C.E,
and this has led to the deportation of junk people
and pains our communities.
[indistinct]
BPD, cameras with surveillance and criminalization of us.
It's not right.
Everyone on the council at some point
has talked about supporting young people
and young people being our future leaders.
We are leaders right now,
we are telling you to do what everyone knows is right.
By preventing the use of facial recognition surveillance,
we can do more to protect immigrant families in Boston.
Stop selling youth and families out.
Let's give power to people
and take this first step in addressing the problem we have
with law enforcement surveillance
and criminalization or people by surveillance system.
Thank you very much
Next up, the next group of folks we have are,
Sherlandy Pardieu, Eli Harmon, Natalie Diaz and Jose Gomez.
So is Sherlandy available.
I see that person in the waiting room, sorry.
well, we'll go ahead and go to Eli.
I think I see right now, ready to go
and then we'll come back to Sherlandy,
Eli you have two minutes.
Oh, thank you so much.
Oh, who's speaking?
oh, sorry, this is Eli.
Okay, very well.
Thank you so much.
My name is Eli Harmon, I live in Mission Hill.
I've been doing work with the Student Immigrant Movement.
I'm testifying on behalf of them today,
in support of the ordinance.
The issue of police surveillance
is enormously important to people
all across the city of Boston
though it's of particular concern to communities of color,
which it overwhelmingly targets.
A study done by MIT research
showed this type of surveillance technology
would be far less accurate for people of color.
And in fact, it was inaccurate for 35% of black women
and was most accurate for white adult men.
Law enforcement today, already of course,
overwhelmingly targets black and brown communities.
And this type of technology
is likely to only make this more severe case.
Additionally this type of technology
is a complete violation of people's privacy.
There are no regulations with regard
to the extent to which law enforcement
can use this technology.
And it has been used as an abuse of power
by government officials in order to track down immigrants,
people of color and activists.
Finally, lots of money goes into funding
this surveillance technology,
and for the reasons previously stated
this technology in no way keeps our communities safe
and the money that currently funds it,
could be put into much better places,
such as creating affordable housing for all,
fully funding the Boston public schools,
creating equitable healthcare
and other places which would actually be effective
in bringing down crime rates.
Many cities that neighbor Boston, including Somerville,
Brooklyn, Cambridge and Springfield,
have chosen to ban facial surveillance
because they understand that it is dangerous
and harmful to communities of color.
It is a violation of people's privacy
and that money currently being used to fund that technology
would be better spent in places
that actually improve lives in Boston.
For these reasons,
I asked the council to pass a prohibition
of the use of facial recognition surveillance
and give the community control
over surveillance technology and usage.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
I do see Sherlandy
I'm here.
Okay, you have two minutes Sherlandy.
I am writing on behalf of SIM in support of the ordinance
banning facial recognition technology in Boston.
I urge my city of Boston to pass this ordinance
to join other cities in Massachusetts,
like Springfield, Somerville, Cambridge, Brooklyn
and Northern and putting the community power
before the police.
The city of Boston, the residents, families
and youth from Boston, deserve transparency,
respect and control.
A ban on facial surveillance technology
is important in the city of Boston
because this technology is dangerous
and it leads to serious mistrust in the community.
Face surveillance is proven to be less accurate
for people of darker skin.
Black people already face extreme levels
of police violence and harassment.
The racial bias and face surveillance
will put lives in danger.
But even if accurate,
we should still be doing all that we can
to avoid a future where every time we go to the doctor,
a place of worship or protest,
the government is scanning our face
and recording our movements.
We already know that law enforcement
is constantly sharing and misusing information.
What would happen to our people
when we are already under constant surveillance
and criminalization.
Using face surveillance,
the government could begin to identify
and keep a list of every person at a protests.
People who are driving
or who are walking the street every single day
across the city on a ongoing automatic basis,
it would keep the same harmful surveillance going,
like what happened with the use of [indistinct] database.
It would criminalize anyone to make a move in our city.
If we want this city to be safe,
we need to put our money where our mouth is
and invest in practice such as restorative justice
to help restore or community.
Facial surveillance is not the answer.
If anything, it is distracting
or addressing our real concern
about safety in our communities.
I urge you to prohibit the use of facial surveillance
in the city of Boston,
because we cannot allow law enforcement to target black
and brown immigrants, activists and community members.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you very much.
I want to say thank you to all of the youth
who have testified and will testify at SIM,
all those folks showing up, you are...
I just wanna say thank you so much
on behalf of the city council, you're our future
and you're doing an amazing job.
I have a Natalie Diaz and then Jose Gomez.
I see the Emily Reif who had signed up before
might also be available.
So those next three names,
I think Natalie may no longer be with us.
Okay, is Jose available?
Yes. CHAIR: Two minutes.
Hi everyone.
I'm here on behalf of SIM to testify in favor
of the ban on facial recognition software in Boston.
I am an MIT alumni,
working as a software engineer in Boston
and I'm a DACA recipient as well.
And I wanted to tell you for your time
that as a software engineer working in AI
and machine learning, enabled robots,
that the software use for facial recognition
is far from perfect.
In fact, as Joy found in others have noted,
one in three black women is likely
to be misclassified by technology.
And our own federal government has found
that the face recognition algorithms
were more likely to fail
when attempting to identify faces of people of color,
children, elderly and women.
This software after all is written by people.
And this is inherently filled with mistakes and bias,
despite the detailed quality assurance processes
or production level software undergoes.
This is an accepted fact in software industry,
no matter how good your software is
or the testing process is,
bugs in the software will always exist.
Consequently, the use of facial recognition technology
by government entities especially the police departments
must be banned as a consequence of errors
in the technology or if life and death.
The false identification by a facial recognition software
could lead to an unwarranted confrontation
with the police department.
The seemingly small error in facial recognition software
may not mean much to you,
but as an undocumented immigrant and a person of color,
any confrontation with the police
could mean deportation or even my life.
The police have a record of systemic racial bias
leading into the deaths of thousands of people.
Government entities, special police forces
do not need any more tools to further their racial bias
and consequently there's a stomach murdering
of the very people they're meant to protect.
I encourage you to press pause
on these face surveillance by government entities
in the city of Boston, by supporting this crucial ban.
Thank you very much, after Jose I think we had...
After Jose we had Emily, Emily Reif has rejoined us.
She was part of the original first set we called, Emily.
EMILY: Hello, sorry.
Can you hear me? Yep, two minutes.
Sorry about that, I was having internet issues.
So my name is Emily Reif
and I work at a machine learning research at Google.
Although of course my views are my own
and I'm here as a citizen.
Yeah, I strongly support the ban
on facial recognition technology
and many people have said similar things
to what I'm about to say and much better words.
I just wanted to reiterate on...
Even when working correctly,
there are so many major privacy
with these technologies and by definition,
they're designed to track us wherever and whenever
we're in public spaces and to aggregate this information
and having those kinds of extreme surveillance
is not only kind of horrifying at a personal level,
but it will also fundamentally change
the way that we go about our daily lives
and operate as a democratic society.
And others have already cited some of the research on this.
It's a well-documented phenomenon, not a good one.
And so that's all about facial recognition technology
when it's working perfectly.
But again, as people have noted
that's so far from the truth.
Yeah, there's a ton of research on this by the ACLU,
and Joy who spoke earlier
and I've seen this in my own research.
Our team's research is related to these areas.
That these models are just totally not reliable for data
that is different than what they're trained on.
And that these inaccuracy don't make it any less,
I mean, one might say like, oh, so it makes it,
potentially less dangerous, but it makes it much,
much more dangerous when the inaccuracy
has just reinforced the biases,
that disparities that have always been there
in the way that different groups are surveyed
and policed and incarcerated.
And we saw with, with Briana Hiller's death
that thinking that you're attacking
or that you're entering the right house,
and if you are wrong about that,
there's just horrible, an unspeakable consequences
And yeah, we can't possibly risk that
and that's not a road we should remotely
think about going down, thank you.
That's perfectly on time.
I'm just gonna go down the list
and also call on Christian De Leon, Clara Ruis,
Diana Serrano and Oliver De Leon.
Are those folks are available.
I see Christian.
Christian you may start, you have two minutes.
[indistinct]
You have to turn off one computer and on your phone
or something, you're gonna have to turn off
one of the devices.
CHRISTIAN: Can you hear me fine now?
Much better, thank you.
CHRISTIAN: My name is Christian De Leon,
I'm here today as a member
of the Student Immigrant Movement
in support of banning facial recognition in Boston.
Face surveillance is not only a huge invasion of privacy,
but in the wrong hands can be used
to even further oppress minorities.
It can be used to track immigrants, protestors,
and inaccurate when tracking people of darker complexion.
As we know, this can be very problematic
since these tools target these communities
through racial profiling already.
Having surveillance tools like facial recognition
will contribute to an even greater systemic oppression.
There's also has no business being in our schools.
To my knowledge, some schools are already investing
in face recognition software
and are investing millions in this new technology,
and for what exactly?
To track their students every move?
I believe school should spend that time and money
on bettering their school and education systems,
rather than spending it on software and tools
that will no way improve students' ability to be educated.
We are already living in a time
where technology can do scary things
and the last thing we need
are people watching our every move on a day-to-day basis.
During this pandemic,
we have grown accustomed to wearing masks
and covering our faces in public,
well, if we now have facial recognition
on every street corner,
then this temporary thing the world has adapted to
may just become permanent.
Not only to protect our own privacy,
but to not be falsely accused of crimes
due to falsely recognition software.
2020 has had a great display of racism and brutality
against people of color,
particularly the black community,
and I fear that systems such as facial recognition software
in the hands of law enforcement,
can just be another tool they use against us.
Thank you for listening to my concerns.
Thank you very much.
Clara Ruiz.
CLARA: Hello. Hello.
You have two minutes Clara.
CLARA] : Thank you so much.
My name is Clara Ruiz and I'm writing in support
of the ordinance banning facial recognition technology
in Boston presented by councilor Wu and Arroyo.
This ordinance establish a ban on government use
of face surveillance in the city of Boston.
Boston must pass this ordinance to join Springfield,
Somerville, Cambridge, Brooklyn, North Hampton
in protecting racial justice privacy, and freedom of speech.
This mattered to me because I'm a member of the BIPOCC,
Black Indigenous and People of Color Community.
And this is allowing for the community
to increase in racial biases.
This technology does not protect constitutional rights
and values, including privacy in an immediate
[indistinct]
appropriate speech and association, equal protection
and government accountability in transparency.
And the government must be aware of the technical limits
of even the most promising new technologies
in the release of relying on computer system
that can be prone to error.
Facial recognition is creeping
into more and more law enforcement agencies,
but later notice or oversight.
And there are practically no laws regulating
this investive surveillance technology.
Meanwhile, ongoing technical limitations
to the accuracy of facial recognition
create serious problems like misidentification
and public safety risk.
I refuse to sit back and put my community on the risk
than it already is.
These surveillance technologies
are intentionally set up to the disadvantage of brown
and color people, communities.
It has a better success rate when it comes to white males,
meaning this technology is a unreliable
and it will do more harm,
if we don't ban the surveillance tool.
This technology will allow for misidentification
to purposely happen against black and brown people.
A ban on face surveillance technology
is critically important in the city of Boston
because we need to keep the community safe,
because all life matters.
A federal government government's study
published in December 2019,
conduct face recognition algorithms
were most likely to fail
when attempting to identify the faces of people of color,
children, elderly and woman.
That means the test only reliably works
on middle aged white men.
If really a small fraction of Boston residents,
I encourage you to pass to press pause
on the use of face surveillance by government entities
in the city of Boston,
by supporting and passing this crucial ban.
We cannot allow Boston to adopt authoritarian,
unregulated, bias surveillance technology.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
And the way, Diana Serrano,
is also gonna be testifying through this.
Diana you have two minutes.
DIANA: Okay, hello, my name is Diana Serrano,
good evening.
I'm writing on behalf of SIM in support of the ordinance
banning facial recognition technology in Boston.
I urge my city of Boston to pass this ordinance
to join Springfield, Somerville, Cambridge, Brooklyn
and North Hampton in protecting racial justice,
privacy and freedom of speech.
It is our duty as a free and just city,
to ban technology like facial recognition.
As a victim of social media hacking,
I've seen how technology could be used as a tool to defame
and criminalize with pictures
that feel like proof to the viewers.
As a teacher and civilian,
I refuse to allow those in my community
to be exposed to a highly problematic
and technology like facial recognition.
Not only is privacy important
and should be valued by our law enforcement,
face surveillance is proven to be less accurate
for people with darker skin.
With the high levels of racial discrimination
forced on our black and brown communities
by law enforcement.
The racial bias in face surveillance
will put lives in danger even further than they already are.
A ban on face surveillance technology
is critically important in the city of Boston
because that technology really is only reliable
for a very small fraction of the population.
It's highly important to me to live in a city
where it is critical for leaders to keep our city
and its people safe.
Although it may seem as though facial recognition
could maybe keep us safer, it has proven do the opposite.
I urge you to press pause on the use of facial surveillance
by government entities and the city of Boston
by supporting and passing the crucial ban.
We cannot allow Boston to adopt
authoritarian, unregulated, bias surveillance technology.
Thank you for your attention, Diana Serrano.
Thank you very much.
Oliver De Leon, you have two minute.
OLIVER: Hi, my name is Oliver
and I live in Jamaica Plain.
And I was undocumented when I attended
the Boston public schools in early nineties.
So yes, it's a while back, so I became a citizen in 2016.
I look back on my days in high school
while contemplating this new technology,
facial recognition and I can sincerely tell you that
it terrified me the thought of having somebody
access this technology without my consent acknowledge.
I don't know if this would have allowed me
to finish school at that time.
And it would have been hard
to even finish possibly higher education.
Without that education,
I wouldn't have been able to secure job opportunities
like I have now with a paying job
that helps me provide for my family.
So we started thinking about that.
We start see seeing how this facial recognition
can actually have a negative impact
in the education of our youth and our future.
People already talk, how are the U.S.
is already riddled with racial bias,
and this software is just giving people already empowered
a tool to discriminate even more.
For example, I.C.E has already shown up in the protests
and detained a few people.
Now we have to ask ourselves
how the heck do they pick out these few people
in the thousands of protesters?
I mean, one can only speculate,
but one of the few answers
can be facial recognition software.
Do we not have it?
Do they have it?
How can we show that they're not using it?
Well, it's pretty hard to pick out two or three individuals
out of a thousands and thousands
and thousands of protestors.
So it's up to us to kind of speculate what that is.
The Coronavirus has caused major epidemic.
The police brutality has caused major epidemic.
I guess we have to ask ourselves,
are you allowing the next epidemic to happen?
Maybe.
Banning facial recognition in the city of Boston
will bring us to be in the middle of the next battle.
And which side do we wanna be on?
Let's not approve this software.
I urge you to to ban facial recognition technology
as it also affects our youth.
We do not need a system or software
that can pick up individuals
and potentially erroneously
accuse them of something that they haven't done.
Will the next death is caused by your choice today.
Let's hope not, thank you.
Thank you, thank you very much.
It's 10 to six.
I'm going to have to stop sharing at six o'clock.
That only means that I will be turning over the gavel
to the one of the lead sponsors,
Michelle Wu at six o'clock.
But I'm gonna call the next names of individuals
who are in line and have signed up to speak before I go.
And we'll continue chair.
I've got an Angel, Michelle Raj Mon, Leon Smith,
Amy van der Hiel, excuse me, Julie McNulty and Zachary Lawn.
So is the Angel available?
ANGEL: Yes.
Hello everyone, thank you for being here today.
Thank you.
ANGEL: My name is Angel and I am in fresh grade
and go to a Boston public school.
I am seven years old.
To me surveillance means people watching you
without even knowing.
I would feel frustrated
because I do not want anyone watching me,
especially if I'm home at school or at a park.
Facial recognition is when they see your face
and know all the details,
but this does not work for everyone
because most police do not like people
who are not their skin color.
This tool is not going to be equal
to people who are black, Latino, immigrants and more,
it can get the wrong person.
I am young, as I get older, I will not look the same.
I am seven now and when I turned 13, I will look different.
When I turn 18, I will look different.
I get older and my face changes.
If these tools are used new school, I will not feel safe.
We are just children.
Our teachers are already taking care and watching us.
We do not need police watching us.
Thank you SIM, for your love and support.
Well, I have to say,
I think you're the youngest person that's testified ever.
And in anything I've ever shared,
or I had that participation,
I know we're all on Zoom,
but I will give you a round of applause.
Thank you so much.
That was absolutely beautiful, very powerful testimony.
We're so proud of you.
Your city council and city are so proud of you.
Thank you so much for your testimony Angel.
I'm going to now call on,
I don't think I see Michelle or Leon
and don't share them either.
Okay, so I see Amy, who was we called earlier?
So Amy, you have two minutes
and you get to follow the cutest seven-year-old ever.
[Lydia laughs]
Go ahead,
you're on mute.
Thank you, I applaud her testimony entirely.
Thank you madam chairwoman and the council
for hearing our testimony, I'll be very brief.
I just wanted to say my name is Amy van der Hiel.
I live in Roslindale
and I support the ban on face surveillance, thank you.
Thank you very much, Michelle.
I have a Michelle Raj Mon and I see that Michelle Barrios.
Are you...
Okay, that was the mistake.
Very well then, Michelle you have two minutes.
That's okay.
And I also am not following Angel as a bit much.
So hello.
My name is Michelle Barrios
and I am a social studies teacher in the Boston area.
And today I am here speaking on behalf
of the Student Immigrant Movement,
myself as an educator
and on the behalf of my diverse student population.
I am speaking in support of the ordinance
banning facial recognition technology in Boston,
presented by councilors Wu and Arroyo.
This ordinance established a ban on government use
of facial surveillance in the city of Boston.
Boston must pass this ordinance to join Springfield,
Somerville, excuse me, Springfield, Somerville,
Cambridge, Brooklyn and North Hampton
in protecting racial justice, privacy and freedom of speech.
In my training as a social studies teacher,
I became increasingly aware of the trauma
that students of color develop
as they grow in a society
that seeks to police them on the basis of their ethnicity,
economic status and place of residence.
This trauma is exacerbated when a young person
comes from an immigrant family,
the status in this country,
places them at risk of family separation,
a loss of education and a stripping of basic human rights.
We know that students struggle to succeed academically
when they face these daily existential traumas,
which in essence is a violation of their rights
in the U.S. to pursue survival,
let alone social mobility and a future of stability.
In addition to my training and work as an educator,
I am the wife of a Latino immigrants
and the mother of two of my sisters children,
while I am a white Latina
and I can live under the presumption of innocence
due to my white privilege,
I've witnessed firsthand what it means to live in a society
that has not yet made good on its promise of equality,
liberty, and justice for all.
My husband is followed in stores,
teachers hesitate to release our children to him
when they first meet him
and he has been asked for his immigration status
by customers in his place of work.
We are in the fortunate position to know that his life
and our family can count on his permanent residency
to keep us together for now.
However, I cannot say the same for many Latin X families
in the greater Boston area,
a ban on face surveillance technology
is critically important in the city of Boston
because this surveillance harms our privacy
and our freedom of speech,
a fundamental right in our constitution.
This type of surveillance threatens to create a world
where people are watched and identified
as they exercise their right to protest,
congregate at places of worship
and visit medical providers,
as they go about their daily lives.
For my students of color,
specifically the young men growing up in a world
that still cannot fully accept that their lives matter,
face surveillance technology is not only
another threat to their lives,
but a response saying to these young people,
you still don't matter.
I teach world history as well as comparative government
and politics, and when I teach about authoritarianism,
I teach about the impact on marginalized groups
in countries that are still considered developing.
I teach that in these free countries
or in these recently free countries,
surveillance is one of the most common tools
to manage descent.
And that is often followed by state sanctioned violence
as means to silence any dissidents.
I urge each of you to consider the statement
the statement that you would make by not banning
the use of facial surveillance technology in Boston.
I urge each of you to imagine a 14 year old student of color
or a Latino essential worker in front of you,
asking if their lives matter.
What is your response?
I encourage you to consider that moment
and to press pause on the use of face surveillance
by government entities in the city of Boston,
by supporting and passing this crucial ban.
We cannot allow Boston to adopt authoritarian,
unregulated, bias surveillance technology.
Thank you for your attention and your consideration.
Thank you very much.
At this point, I'm going to turn over the microphone
or the gavel if you will, to my colleague, Michelle Wu.
I'll just say up next two speakers should be getting ready.
Is Julie McNulty, Zachary Lawn, Christina Rivera,
and Joseph Fridman.
I wanna thank you so much to the lead sponsors
of this ordinance.
I will be planning to have a working session
as soon as possible.
I do understand the urgency and I do believe
that there is a great opportunity before us to lead
in a way that not only values the lives
of our black and brown, but in general, our civil liberties.
And so I want to thank again,
lead sponsors for their leadership.
I look forward to getting this done
and with that I'm going to have to sign off
and I turn over to Michelle Wu.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, madam chair.
We're very grateful for you.
Okay, next step was Julie.
And if not, Julie, then Zachary.
And just to know, could council central staff
give me administrative rights,
so I can help search whether folks
are stuck in the waiting room
and trans people over into the panelists section, thank you.
So again, it was Julie, Zachary, Christina Rivera,
Joseph Fridman, Danielle Samter, for the next few.
Christina, why don't you go ahead.
I see you now in the, in the main room.
Hi, yes.
Thank you for having me as stated.
My name is Christina Rivera
and I am an east Boston resident.
I'm also the founder of the Latin X Coalition
for Black Lives Matter.
It is a support organization
to help end racism within our community,
but also help advance the work
of the Black Lives Matter Movement.
I wanna say that we as an organization,
we fully support the ordinance
of a ban on facial recognition technology.
As stated all throughout this meeting earlier,
we know that the automation bias exists
and that facial recognition technology
clearly shows bias towards already highly targeted
and hyper policed communities,
specifically those of color.
And I just wanna pose the question,
how can we begin to trust
even with the development of algorithm accuracy,
that those who will use it in the future
will not abuse its capabilities.
We already have a police force
that has shown time and time again,
that some of their own procedures are still abused
to this date and used by bad actors.
So adding a tool that can be used
to further affirm racial bias
only provides another route to target our communities.
Using this technology also enforces a policing system
that is based on control,
and that is a direct symptom of police mistrust
that already exists of their own citizens
and the ones that they serve.
And so, as some people earlier stated,
specifically Mr. Daley point about
what government agencies are allowed to already use this
versus people who have in inactive bands,
what is also going to be the legislative power
that any federal agency will be able to use it
in individual states,
specifically when it comes to I.C.E and immigration.
So this is something that we are looking to make sure
that it's not only is banned now,
but also cannot be allowed in the future.
With that said,
thank you so much to all the panelists
who've shared all this great information.
Thank you so much to councilor Wu and councilor Arroyo
for doing this work and I concede my time.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Christina.
We appreciate you, Joseph.
Yes, thank you for your time.
I'd like to tell you a little bit about the science
between emotion detection technologies.
So these are technologies
that use information captured from face surveillance
to supposedly recognize emotions.
So I'll be speaking to you as a private citizen,
but I'll tell you that for the past three years,
I've been working at a lab at Northeastern University,
which studies emotions,
and I've been a research assistant
at the Harvard Kennedy Schools Belfer Center for Science
and International Relations,
thinking about the same type of technology.
At the interdisciplinary aspect of science lab
at Northeastern,
one of my bosses is Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Dr. Barrett has research appointments at MGH
and Harvard Medical School.
She's the chief scientific officer at MGH Center
for Law, Brain and Behavior.
She's the author of
over 230 peer reviewed scientific papers,
and just finished a term as president
of the Association for Psychological Science,
where she represented tens of thousands of scientists
around the world.
Three years ago,
this organization commissioned her and four other experts,
psychologists, computer science, and so on,
to do a major study
on whether people across the world express emotions
like anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise,
and happiness with distinctive movements of the face.
So all of these scientists
started with different perspectives,
but they reviewed a thousand research articles
and they came to a very simple and very important consensus.
So the question is,
can you read emotions reliably in a human face?
And the answer is no.
Here's an example from Dr. Barrett.
People living in Western cultures scowl when they're angry
about 30% of the time,
this means that they make other facial expressions,
frowns, wide-eyed, gasps smiles about 70% of the time.
This is called low reliability.
People scowl when angry more than chance,
but they also scowl when they're not angry.
If they're concentrating or if they have something like gas,
this is called low specificity.
So a scowl is not the expression of anger,
but it's one of many expressions of anger.
And sometimes it doesn't express anger at all.
In this paper, Dr. Barrett and her colleagues
showed that scowling and anger, smiling and happiness,
frowning and sadness,
these are all Western stereotypes of emotional expressions.
They reflect some common beliefs
about emotional expressions,
but these beliefs don't correspond
to how people actually move their faces in real life.
And they don't generalize to cultures
that are different from ours.
So it's not possible for anyone
or anything to read an emotion on our face.
And we shouldn't confidently infer happiness from a smile,
anger from a scowl or sadness from a frown.
There are technologies that claim to do this,
and they're misrepresenting what they can do
according to the best available evidence.
People aren't moving their faces randomly,
but there's a lot of variation
and the meaning of a facial movement
depends on a person on the context and on culture.
So let me give you one example
of how making this assumption can be really harmful.
There's a scientist, Dr. Lauren Ruth,
when she was at Wake Forest University,
published work reviewing two popular
emotion detection algorithms.
She ran these algorithms algorithms
on portraits of white and black NBA players.
And both of them consistently interpreted
the black players as having more negative emotions
than the white players.
Imagine that there's a security guard
that gets information from a surveillance camera
that this is possible nuisance
in the lobby of their building
because of the facial movements that somebody is making.
Imagine a defendant in the courtroom
that scowling as they concentrate on legal proceedings
but in emotion AI, based on facial surveillance
tells the jury that the defendant is angry.
Imagine that the defendant is black
and the AI says that they're contemptuous.
Imagine at worst, that police officer
receiving an alert from at a body camera
based on this technology
that says that someone in their line of sight is a threat
based on a so-called reading of their face.
Councilors I think that the question
that we should be thinking about
is whether we want someone to use this technology on us
with the chance that it would misinterpret our face
given the major chance that it has of being wrong.
And I think the clear answer to that is no.
We should ban facial surveillance technologies
and all of these other dangerous applications.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Next up is Danielle and Danielle will be followed
by DJ Hatfield and Denise Horn.
Hi, good afternoon everybody.
My name is Danielle, I'm a Boston resident,
I live in the north end.
I just wanted to fully support
and put my voice behind the ban
for facial recognition recognition technology.
I feel as though the expert witnesses
and activists that have gone before me,
have clearly expressed and eloquently expressed the views
that I also share.
I find this technology to be incredibly dangerous.
As a cybersecurity professional,
I have a lot of questions about
what it means to be collecting data on people
and storing it.
I certainly think that this is a measure
that should be taken to be a precedent
for all future developments of the technology
as was just stated.
There are upcoming and new ways
to express facial recognition through emotions or otherwise
that we can't even comprehend yet because it hasn't started.
So I wanted to support it and thank all the other people
for putting their voice behind it
and hope to see it take place, thank you.
Thank you very much, DJ.
Hi, will start the video.
So I'm DJ Hatfield.
I'm a professor of anthropology and history
at the Berkeley College of Music in Boston.
However, what I have to say is as a private citizen
and a resident of east Boston,
that's a shout out to Lydia, east Boston pride.
Yes, as an anthropologist I'm aware that all technologies,
including digital technologies
reflect an augment the social structures
and systems of value of particular societies.
They are not objective,
but reflect the biases of those societies
as they develop through history.
Moreover, if we look at societies
where facial recognition has been widely deployed,
such as the People's Republic of China,
we see very clearly how these technologies
have been used systematically
to target marginal populations.
This is a quality of the weight
that these technologies intersect with social systems
that act against people of color
and indigenous people, globally.
Therefore, in the city of Boston,
where we take pride in our civic freedoms,
we should be wary of technologies
that would make our Fourth Amendment meaningless
and would erode the First Amendment.
Therefore, I would urge the city council
and the city of Boston to pass a complete ban
on facial recognition systems and technology,
with the amendments that have been proposed by experts,
such as those of the Electronic Freedom Foundation,
and the Algorithmic Justice League,
who have said there should be no exception
for the Boston Police Department to use facial recognition
or surveillance systems in evidence,
in which there should be strict rules
for enforcement of breaches of this ban.
And finally, if possible, extending this ban
to all private actors who have business
in the city of Boston.
Thank you for your consideration
and thank you for all your time today.
I appreciate being able to join
in my very first public hearing.
Thank you.
We are excited to have you at our hearing
and hope you'll come back, Denise next.
And then after Denise,
there are a few names assigned up
that I didn't see in the room.
So I'm gonna call out folks
that I was able to cross reference between the waiting room
and the list, which was Charles Griswold
and Nora Paul-Schultz.
And then after that,
I'm gonna try to admit everyone else
who's in the room and go in order,
even if you weren't on the original list.
So Denise, please.
Thank you.
Thank you members of the council
and the lead sponsors of the ordinance
and the panelists, really excellent commentary.
And I just have to say how impressed I am
with the Student Immigrant Movement for showing up today,
this really impressive.
My name is Denise Horn, I'm a resident of Jamaica Plain.
I'm also a professor of political science
and international relations at Simmons University.
Although I am not representing my institution today.
And I want to say that I support the ban
against the use of facial surveillance.
So, like professor Hatfield,
I am a scholar of international relations,
I have studied authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe
and east and southeast Asia,
where surveillance technologies of every kind have been
and are used to target enemies of the state.
In the United States we're already seeing this language
in use by the leaders in our government,
regarding immigrants and activists,
and especially those who are opposed to fascism.
I do not think that we should underestimate
how this type of technology could be used
to further racists an authoritarian agendas here.
The use of facial surveillance is used to oppress
and control citizens under the guise of public safety.
This is a slippery slope.
Government surveillance is used to silence,
to suppress speech and to violate human rights.
As an educator, I worry about this type,
how this type of technology will be used
to adversely affect the lives of my students of color,
trans students, undocumented students, activists
and marginalized groups, their lives matter.
I strongly support this ban
and I thank you for letting me speak.
Thank you, Denise, Charles.
Yep, so I'm trying to start the video here, there we are.
Can you see me and hear me?
Yes we can. Okay, thank you.
My name is Charles Gridwold, I'm a resident of Brighton
and I'm a philosophy professor at Boston University.
I hasten to add that I'm offering my thoughts here
and in offering my thoughts,
I am not speaking for my university
and not acting on his behalf.
So I'm speaking on my own behalf only.
I'm very grateful to all of you on the council
for taking action on this matter
and to the police commissioner for his impressive
and in some ways reassuring testimony.
It's imperative I think,
that you approve this ban on facial recognition technology,
or rather technologies as we've learned today by government
before the relevant software is upgraded.
So far as I can tell,
three arguments for the ban have been discussed today.
The first two extensively and the third a bit less so
and taken together, they seem to me to be decisive
in making the case for the ban.
The first is of course
the matter of racial and gender justice,
on account of the fact that the technology
is known to be inaccurate.
But secondly, is the fact that the technology
is objectionable.
Not just because it's not accurate,
but also when it is accurate,
as Kade Crockford has eloquently argued today.
And that seems to me to be an essential part
of the response to the commissioner's remarks.
In some of the technology puts tremendous additional power
in the hands of government and its agents,
all the more so when it actually does work
and our privacy among other things
is certainly threatened by that.
Where could that lead, look no further,
as people have suggested to the nightmare,
that is the surveillance apparatus in China today.
The third point is, has been mentioned,
but it was less emphasized.
And I think it's just worth underlining,
which is that the awareness
of being personally tracked outside of one's home
by this technology can,
and I think will have a chilling effect
on our exercise of our civil rights,
including our rights of free speech,
freedom of association and our religion.
So I strongly urge the council to pass this ban,
but I also ask that you will not stop there,
expand the band even further,
going forward to include other kinds
of remote surveillance systems,
such that are biometric for example,
a gate and voice recognition systems,
and also to the private sector has been suggested.
So I hope that you will consider expeditiously passing this,
but also going further.
Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you very much, Nora.
Good evening, my name is Nora Paul-Schultz,
and I am a physics teacher in Boston public schools.
And I've had the pleasure of teaching Eli and Esmalda
who spoke earlier and hopefully one day Angel.
And I'm a resident of Jamaica Plain.
As someone who studied engineering when I was in college,
has taught engineering
and is one of the robotics coaches at The O'Bryant,
I understand the impulse to feel like
technology can solve all of our problems.
I know that many for many there is a desire
that if we have better smarter and more technology
than our communities will be safer,
but the reality is that technology is not perfect.
A perfect unbias tool,
as much as we wish it would be.
Our technologies reflect the inherent biases of our makers.
So technology isn't going to save us.
If it does not take much to see that racism
is infused in all parts of our country.
And that is true about the facial surveillance technologies.
Through my work with Unafraid Educators,
the Boston Teacher Unions,
immigrant rights organizing committee,
the information sharing between Boston School Police
and the Boston Police Department,
I know how detrimental observations and surveillance can be.
Practices of surveillance
like camera recording in the hallway
or officers watching young people are not passive.
Surveillance is active.
It leads to the creation of law enforcement profiles
about young people and that can impact their lives
in material ways for years to come.
And what of those impacts being in the system,
can make it harder for young people to get a job
or get housing.
It can lead to incarceration, it can lead to deportation.
Our city government does not need more tools
to profile the people of our city
and especially does doesn't need tools
that are inherently racist.
This is why the ban is so important.
Teaching has taught me that what keeps us safe
is not having the government surveillance
and track us through technology,
what keeps us safe is investing in housing,
education and healthcare.
This face surveillance technology harms our community,
Ah!
Sorry.
This surveillance technology harms our community.
The fact that the face ban technology
only identifies black women correctly one third of the time
lays bare both the ineffectiveness
and implicit bias built into the system.
As a teacher I know that that is not a passing grade.
We need money to go to services
that will protect our community,
and we need to stop and prevent
the use of ineffective racists
and money wasting technologies.
Thank you.
Thank you, Nora and we appreciate all of your work.
I'm gonna quickly read the list of names
that were signed up to testify,
but I didn't see matches of the names of folks
left in the waiting room.
So just in case you're assigning it on a different name,
but I'm expecting that these folks
probably aren't here anymore.
Julie McNulty, Zachary Lawn, McKenna Kavanaugh,
Christine Dordy, Sarah Nelson, Andrew Tario, Amanda Meehan.
Chris Farone, Bridget Shepherd, Lena Papagiannis.
Anyone here and signed on under a different name?
Nope, okay.
Then I will just go on the order
of folks appearing on my screen to close this out.
Thank you so much for your patience.
So that will be Mark G then Adeline Ansell
then Carolina Pena.
Yes, so this is Mark Gurvich,
I'm presenting testimony on behalf of
Jewish Voice for Peace,
a local and national organization
that's guided by Jewish values, fighting racism,
sexism, Islamophobia, LGBTQ, oppression
and anti-immigrant policies here
and challenging racism, colonialism
and oppression everywhere,
with a focus on the injustices suffered by Palestinians
under Israeli occupation and control.
In recent days in the U.S. we have again witnessed
the impact of militarized policing
on communities of color.
Councilor Wu has pointed out in a recent publication
about this militarization
and much of this militarization has been through
the transfer of billions of dollars worth of equipment
from the military to civilian or police forces,
and the training of U.S. police
and the use of military tactics
in controlling the communities,
most heavily impacted by racism,
economic depletion, and health crises.
Our view is that the use of facial recognition technology
is a key component of the militarization of policing.
We know this because of our knowledge
and experience of the Israeli occupation
of Palestinian people in land.
Facial recognition is a core feature of that occupation.
Much of the technology being marketed
to the U.S. law enforcement,
has been field tested on Palestinians
under military occupation.
At this historic and critical time,
when the effects of militarized policing in the U.S.
has resulted in nationwide and worldwide condemnation,
the very last thing we need is another tool
adopted from the toolbox of military occupation.
Jewish Voice for Peace, supports the face surveillance ban.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Adeline or Adeline, sorry to mispronounce your name.
Adeline Ansell.
We'll move on to Carolina or Carolina Pena.
Let me see.
I will unmute on my own in case
it's a muting and unmuting issue.
Then we'll move on to Kristen Lyman.
Kristen will be followed by Galen bunting,
Maria Brincker and Araya Zack.
Kristin.
Okay, going to Galen,
Maria Brincker.
MARIA: Yes.
Hi, I had actually not necessarily prepared.
Hello, can you hear me?
Adeline, will go to your right right next up to Maria.
Sorry about the confusion.
ADELINE: Okay. Okay, no problem.
So I just wanted to thank everybody
and I wanna say that I am very much,
I'm an associate professor at UMass Boston
and both as an educator,
and as a researcher in issues of surveillance,
I am very much in favor of the ordinance.
I would like to say that,
I would also like the council to consider wider regulations.
So as many have said before,
there's a lot of issues also in the private sphere.
So this is a very important first step,
but a lot of the use of facial recognition
in law enforcement,
really interacts with the use of surveillance technologies
in the private space.
So for example, when the Brooklyn Police Department
were trying to argue against the Brooklyn ban,
they used an example of police using Snapchat.
So a lot of speakers before have talked about the importance
of anonymity in public space,
and I'm fully in support of that,
but this is not only about public space.
So the use of facial recognition software
is of course invading all our private spaces as well.
So I would like people to be aware of that.
And as a teacher right now,
with the epidemic teaching on Zoom,
you can only imagine the deployment of voice
and face recognition in all our spaces.
And so I think this is very important.
And another thing,
my background is also in philosophy of neuroscience
and in the understanding of autonomous action.
And autonomous action depends on being in a space
that we can understand.
And one of the reasons why facial recognition
is one of the most dangerous inventions,
is that it precisely ruins the integrity of any space
because we don't know who's there
and it can do so retroactively.
So I thank you very much for all your work on this,
and I'm fully in support of the ordinance, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Okay, next we'll go to Adeline
Hi, I'm Adeline Ansell.
I was just coming out to support the ordinance as member
of the Unafraid Educators group
of the Boston Teachers Union,
to protect our immigrant students
and who have been advocating for themselves
through the Student Immigrant Movement
to support this ordinance
banning facial recognition technology,
because it puts our students more so at risk.
And I don't have a lot to add.
I just wanna support the work they're doing
in their student advocacy.
And I know they all spoke for themselves
and in their allies did as well,
and just wanted to let you know that Boston teachers
also support this ban.
So thank you for listening to all of their testimony
and know that the teachers are on their side too,
and that we support this ordinance, thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, last call.
Either Carolina or Galen
or anyone else who would like to speak.
I think everyone's been admitted from the waiting room now.
Okay, seeing no takers,
I'll pass it back if any councilors
wish to make a closing statement before we wrap up.
I see I'll save councilor Arroyo for right before we close,
councilor Annissa Essaibi-George.
Thank you madam chair at this point
and thank you to you and council Arroyo
for bringing this before the council.
I've really appreciated everyone's testimony today
in both hearings and sort of the,
certainly a very direct correlation
between some of the testimony today,
but a particular interest of mine
was the testimony of the young people
and the testimony of the teachers,
in particular...
So just thank you, thank you both.
Thank you councilor Wu for staying after the chair
had to leave to extend an opportunity
for this continued testimony.
It was certainly important testimony,
but just the fact that everyone stayed on
as long as they did to offer that testimony,
I think is really important to recognize,
and to be grateful for that engagement.
And thank you to you and thank you to the maker.
Thank you councilor
and final closing words from my co-sponsor councilor Arroyo.
Just a sincere thank you to our panelists.
I think many of them are off now,
but thank you so much to them
and everybody who gave testimony,
much of that was deeply moving.
Certainly Angel was a highlight.
So thank you Angel,
and anybody who can get that message to Angel,
I'm not sure if it's bedtime.
Thank you so much for raising your voices
and really being focused at a real municipal level.
This is what we've always asked for.
This is what I grew up about Angel's age,
watching these meetings
and having folks basically beg
for this kind of interaction from our communities.
And so I'm just deeply grateful
that whatever brought you here specifically,
I hope you stay engaged.
I hope you bring this energy to other issues
that really affect our communities on a daily basis
because it really makes change.
It really changes things.
And so thank you so much to everybody who took part in this,
thank you to all the advocates as a part of this.
Thank you councilor Wu for making sure
that there was a chair here
and to councilor Edwards first running it so well earlier.
But thank you to you for ensuring
that we can continue to hear public testimony
because it really is valuable.
So with that, I thought that was all very valuable.
And also thank you to the commissioner
for taking the time to be here
and to really endorse this idea.
I thought that was fantastic.
So thank you.
Thank you, this is a great, great hearing.
I think we all learned so much
and I wanna echo the thanks to the commissioner,
all the community members who gave feedback along the way
and over this evening, my colleagues, the commissioner,
and of course, central staff,
or for making sure all of it went off very, very smoothly.
So we'll circle back up with the committee chair
and figure out next steps, but hoping for swift passage.
And I'm very grateful again,
that we have an opportunity in Boston to take action.
So this will conclude our hearing on docket number 0683,
on an ordinance banning facial recognition technology
in Boston.
This hearing is adjourned.
[gravel strikes]
Bye, see you. Bye.