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Date: 7/8/2020
EASTHAMPTON – At its July 1 meeting, the City Council unanimously voted to ban the use of facial recognition surveillance technology.
During the meeting, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle, Police Chief Bob Alberti, and local residents expressed the need to approve the ban. A common theme within their reasonings was that the technology did not adequately protect people of color.
Councilman Homar Gomez has been working to get this to pass for some time, he said. “Over a year ago we passed a welcome and trust ordinance. This is basically a new extension for that ordinance. This technology is dangerous, it’s not accurate, it’s bias, it’s discriminatory,” Gomez said.
Gomez went on to say that he takes this issue really personal because everytime it affects his community, it affects him.
Springfield City Councilor Adam Gomez was in attendance to express his support in the ban as well. He has helped many surrounding towns and cities get rid of facial recognition technology, including Northampton and Southampton.
Springfield’s Gomez said that when he was first elected he worked with a guy who was using facial recognition equipment so he could see how it would work to be proactive to the crime. He found that when it came to people of darker hues, it was misidentifying them at alarming rates.
LaChapelle said she felt heartened to see the work across the borders of Western Massachusetts and thanked those who made the collaborations happen.
“Most importantly, this technology puts us all at great danger. It erodes public trust and I think it is safe to say that change only happens at the speed of trust,” LaChapelle said.
After the mayor spoke, the conversation was opened up to local residents who expressed the same feelings of the technology being more dangerous than helpful and that they were happy to see their town stand against it.
Resident and member of the Indigenous and Latinx population Jason Montgomery said it is heartening to see that his town is stepping up and believing that everyone has their right to privacy and civil protections.
“Even if this software was 100 percent effective it would still exacerbate underlying bias against our community and it would infringe upon our civil rights to privacy,” said Montgomery.
Easthampton became the sixth municipality in the state to adopt a municipal ban on the technology and drew praise from the ACLU of Massachusetts. Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the ACLU of Massachusett, said in a statement, “Over 1 million Massachusetts residents are now protected by municipal bans on face surveillance technology, the dangers of which are well documented – especially for Black people. This is a victory for privacy rights and for people like Robert Williams, a Black man in Michigan who was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, based solely on a false facial recognition match. At a time when people nationwide are crying out for justice from racist policing, we must do everything we can to ensure police departments are not using racially biased, dangerous technology that can supercharge police abuse of Black and brown people. We are grateful to the Easthampton City Council for passing this ordinance. Lawmakers on Beacon Hill should pass a statewide moratorium immediately so that everyone in the Commonwealth enjoys the same protections against face surveillance.”
Javier Luengo-Garrido, Community Advocate and Coordinator of the Immigrant Protection Project at the ACLU of Massachusetts, added, “We are particularly grateful to Councilor Homar Gomez, the ordinance’s lead sponsor, and to Councilor Thomas Peake, who co-sponsored this measure. We hope Easthampton will serve as a model for other cities and towns in the Commonwealth looking to protect their residents from flawed, racially biased surveillance technologies.”
During LaChapelle’s communications at the council meeting, she announced that the sustainable small business grant program opened for applications. They can be found online at easthamptonchamber.org.
She spoke very briefly on the process for filling the fire chief position. She said that she plans on keeping the position open for as short as possible. “I look forward to speaking more on the behalf of the candidate at Appointment Committee,” LaChapelle said.
The council has added two more meetings to their list for the year. Their next meetings are July 15 and Aug. 19.
Assistant Managing Editor Chris Maza contributed to this report.