Somerville banned government facial recognition in 2019. Boston followed in 2020. Cambridge joined shortly after. Three cities. Same conclusion: this technology is too dangerous to deploy. Not too expensive. Not too buggy. Too dangerous.
They are correct. And the logic applies to you no matter where you live.
Why They Banned It
A license plate reader logs your car. Facial recognition logs you — your identity, your location, every time a camera sees your face. You cannot leave your face at home.
MIT and NIST studies found significantly higher error rates for darker-skinned faces and women. Wrongful arrests have already happened based on misidentification. But accuracy is a distraction. A perfectly accurate system still builds a record of everywhere you go. That is the point.
All three city councils concluded the risks outweighed any law enforcement benefit. MIT and Harvard researchers gave them the data to back the call.
No State Privacy Law
Massachusetts does not have a comprehensive consumer data privacy law. Legislative proposals exist. Nothing has passed. That means residents lack the statutory deletion rights that 19+ other states now provide.
Most data brokers and facial recognition companies still have opt-out processes. They work regardless of state. The difference: without a law, the company honors the request voluntarily. Nobody forces them.
The Limits
These municipal bans cover city government agencies only. Federal agencies, private companies, and neighboring towns are unaffected. TSA still runs facial recognition at Logan Airport. Retailers still run it in stores. The ban is a statement, not a wall.
Cambridge also dropped its Flock Safety license plate reader contract in 2025 after local police were caught searching Flock data on behalf of ICE. Good move. But surrounding communities still have Flock cameras running.
What to Do
Audit your exposure. Search yourself on PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID, Google Lens, Yandex, TinEye. Know what the databases already have.
Submit opt-outs. PimEyes has an opt-out process. Clearview AI has one for select states — Massachusetts is not on the list, but submit anyway. Some companies honor requests broadly.
Remove yourself from data brokers. Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, Radaris, TruePeopleSearch. Without a state law, these are voluntary. Most brokers comply to avoid bad press and future liability.
Harden your footprint. Private social media. Disable face tagging. Strip photo metadata. Kill ad tracking on your phone.
The cities that understand facial recognition best are the ones banning it first. That tells you everything you need to know about what the rest of the country is ignoring.
— J. Daniel, Dark Scrub