California just scored a major privacy win against facial-recognition tech

California sees the looming privacy apocalypse on the horizon, and just took a small step to avert it. 

On Tuesday, the state that many major American tech companies call home moved to ban the use of facial-recognition technology on recordings gathered by police officer cameras. The bill, signed into law by governor Gavin Newsom, is being hailed as a win by privacy advocates across the state. 

"Let this be a warning to the companies and police departments rushing to adopt this dystopian technology," wrote the ACLU. "We will defend our right to privacy."

Interestingly, the bill is not limited specifically to facial-recognition tech — but rather, pertains to biometric surveillance in general. This potentially includes other forms of identification, like gait analysis, that could be gathered from police body cam videos.  Read more...