LD 1585 was unanimously approved by the Maine House and Senate on June 16 and 17, respectively, and became law without the signature of Gov. Janet Mil

Maine Now Has the Toughest Facial Recognition Restrictions in the U.S.

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2021-07-02 23:30:06

LD 1585 was unanimously approved by the Maine House and Senate on June 16 and 17, respectively, and became law without the signature of Gov. Janet Mills. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Grayson Lookner, D-Portland, hopes that Maine’s new law—which goes into effect Oct. 1—will “provide an example to other states that want to rein in the government’s ability to use facial recognition and other invasive biometric technologies.”

The country’s only other statewide law regulating facial recognition was passed in Washington in 2020, and it authorized state police to use facial recognition technology for “mass surveillance of people’s public movements, habits, and associations.” The Washington law—written by state Sen. and Microsoft employee Joe Nguyen— was opposed by the ACLU.

In sharp contrast, the ACLU championed the Maine bill as a victory for privacy rights and civil liberties: “Maine is showing the rest of the country what it looks like when we the people are in control of our civil rights and civil liberties, not tech companies that stand to profit from widespread government use of face surveillance technology,” Michael Kebede, policy counsel at the ACLU of Maine, said in a press release.

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