Oakland may follow San Francisco in banning facial recognition tech

Oakland may follow neighboring San Francisco, which this week became the first major US city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by local government agencies.

The California city's Privacy Advisory Commission voted unanimously earlier this month to support a proposal banning the use of the software.

The proposal would amend the Oakland's current surveillance ordinance and prevent city departments from adopting any facial recognition technology and from using information obtained by the software. The city's police department does not use facial recognition software.