In the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections, public anxiety about crime became a flashpoint. While campaigns for right-wing candidates in battleground states painted alarming pictures of cities riddled with crime under the control of Democrats, voters, too, expressed real concern about the issue. An October survey by Pew Research Center showed that 61% of registered voters viewed violent crime as “very important” to their vote.

Even in Democratic-majority cities, public anxiety about crime seems to be peaking. Determined to assuage people’s concerns (and keep their votes), major cities including San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans are turning to technical surveillance as a solution.

This marks a big shift, especially for a city like San Francisco, which in 2019 became the first U.S. city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by local public agencies, including the police. Boston, Portland, Oakland, and Jackson, Mississippi, have since followed San Francisco’s lead, passing similar restrictions of their own that prevent public agencies from using privately-developed technologies to identify individuals in the course of criminal investigations or other procedures. 

Spearheaded by privacy advocates and buoyed by mass protests against police abuse after the killing of George Floyd, these policies were intended to keep cities from treading into the legal and ethical gray area where facial recognition technology currently sits.