Committee on Government Operations on June 9, 2020

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

@[e-mail]

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.

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.