Council Considers Regulating Biometric Data at Apartment Buildings

November 12, 2019

The City Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings recently received a bill that would require building owners to provide residents with mechanical keys to their buildings and individual apartments. This would allow residents to bypass keyless entry systems, which can include facial recognition scanners. “Smart locks” could still be used, but providing old-fashioned mechanical keys to tenants would allow them to opt-out of having their faces or other biometric data scanned.

The City Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings recently received a bill that would require building owners to provide residents with mechanical keys to their buildings and individual apartments. This would allow residents to bypass keyless entry systems, which can include facial recognition scanners. “Smart locks” could still be used, but providing old-fashioned mechanical keys to tenants would allow them to opt-out of having their faces or other biometric data scanned.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, facial recognition identifies a person by comparing her facial image to a database of stored faceprints. A faceprint is one type of biometric data, as biometrics have expanded from distinguishing basic physical traits to include fingerprints, eye scans, voice recognition, DNA, and facial recognition.

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