Government

Public Safety Committee Recommends Oakland Ban on Facial Recognition Software

OAKLAND POST — The Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee has recommended approval of Council President Rebeca Kaplan’s proposal to ban facial recognition technology, which a researcher with Microsoft has described as “toxic,” calling for it to “be banned for almost all practical purposes.”

Published

6 years ago

July 25, 2019

By Post Staff

By The Oakland Post

The Oakland City Council’s Public Safety Committee has recommended approval of Council President Rebeca Kaplan’s proposal to ban facial recognition technology, which a researcher with Microsoft has described as “toxic,” calling for it to “be banned for almost all practical purposes.”

On June 25, on the same day as Council President Kaplan introduced the ban at Public Safety, the United Nations called for a moratorium on surveillance technology to end abuses.

Said David Kaye, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, “Surveillance tools can interfere with human rights, from the right to privacy and freedom of expression to rights of association and assembly.”

Facial recognition systems rely on biased datasets with high levels of inaccuracy and lack standards around its use which has already lead to misidentification and manipulation of data, said Kaplan. The invasive nature of this technology has also resulted in government abuses including its use to persecute Muslims in China and police accountability activists in Baltimore.

“I welcome emerging technologies that improve our lives and facilitate city governance, but when multiple studies show a technology is flawed, biased, and is having unprecedented, chilling effects to our freedom of speech and religion, we have to take stand,” said Kaplan. “It is important to build trust and good relationships between community and police and to remedy racial bias, however this flawed technology could make those problems worse. The right to privacy and the right to equal protection are fundamental and we cannot surrender them.”

Said Brian Hofer, chair for the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission, “President Kaplan and the Oakland Public Safety Committee again unanimously recognized and supported its citizen privacy commissioners and constituent concerns regarding invasive technology. Face surveillance is unlike any other technology seen in our lifetime. It is incompatible with a healthy democracy, and like San Francisco, we hope the full Oakland council draws a line in the sand that this level of intrusiveness is creepy and inappropriate for Oakland.”

Data shows that this technology disproportionately misidentifies darker skinned women. In a 2018 report by the MIT Media Lab, the study concluded that face recognition systems worked best on white males and failed most often with the combination of female and dark-skin individuals with error rates of up to 34.7 percent In another test by the ACLU, Amazon’s recognition face surveillance software misidentified 28 members of Congress as criminals.

The misuse and lack of guidelines around the use of this technology has also landed some police departments in hot water. In May 2019, Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology (CPT) issued a report, detailing how some law enforcement agencies fed facial recognition software flawed data and warned that there are “no rules when it comes to what images police can submit to face recognition algorithms to generate investigative leads.”

“Facial recognition technology poses serious concerns, not only due to increased false positives correlating with the darkness of one’s skin, but also due to the chilling of free speech,” said Sameena Usman, Government Relations Coordinator for the SF Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Said Nathan “Nash” Sheard, Electronic Frontier Foundation, “It is encouraging to see Oakland lawmakers anticipating the surveillance problems on the horizon and taking this proactive step toward banning the use of this particularly pernicious form of surveillance. The very real impact this would have on Oakland residents safety, and ability to exercise our most fundamental freedoms greatly overshadows any potential benefits.”

Henry Gage III, Privacy commissioner, said, “Facial recognition technology is oppressive, coercive, and easily abused. We don’t need it to keep Oakland safe. Thanks to Council President Kaplan, Oakland is drawing a line in the sand, and standing up for Oaklanders’ privacy rights.”

On May 2nd at the Privacy Advisory Commission, Chairperson Brian Hofer introduced the amendment that categorically prohibits the use of facial recognition technology. The amendment passed unanimously.

This article originally appeared in the Oakland Post.

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Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

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April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

43 minutes ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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Activism

California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

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1 hour ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”