Facial Recognition Technology. The Special Commission to Evaluate Government Use of Facial Recognition Technology in the Commonwealth recently released its report with recommendations to the Legislature. Among other things, the Commission recommends that the Legislature centralize all use of facial recognition technology, require a warrant for police facial recognition searches, limit such searches to felony investigations, and prohibit the use of facial recognition technology for surveillance. The 173-page report may be found here: https://frcommissionma.com/
Housing Evictions. The Housing Justice Coalition known as Homes for All Massachusetts also recently released a report titled “Housing Justice Beyond the Emergency: An Analysis of racial Inequity in Eviction Filings Across Massachusetts.” The report found that the rate of evictions during the pandemic was nearly twice as high in communities of color as it was in predominantly white neighborhoods. The full report is available here: https://www.homesforallmass.org/covid-evictions-report/