San Francisco is the first U.S. city to ban facial recognition. The police cannot use the software. The city already uses cameras for car number plates and at airports. The police wear body cameras. Officials say facial recognition will increase security. They say it is cheaper and faster for police to find criminals and to find missing people. A technology expert said: "A ban on facial recognition will make [San Francisco] frozen in time with [old] technology."

An official said facial recognition was like "Big Brother". This is a character in the book "1984". The phrase Big Brother describes governments trying to control and spy on everyone. The official said: "We can have security without being a security state. We can have good policing without being a police state." He said we should build trust by using good community information, not by using Big Brother technology. Many countries use facial recognition.