Turning to technology now. San Francisco is set to become the first major American city to ban the use of facial recognition technology by its police and other city departments. The ban has ignited a debate over a controversial issue that's likely to trigger discussions in more and more cities around the world. Mark Niu has the details.

By a vote of 8-1, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a regulation to ban the use of facial recognition technology by city police and other government departments. The new statute heads to the mayor next month for final approval.

AARON PESKIN SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS "We can have good policing without becoming a police state. And part of that is building trust with the community based on good community information, not 'Big Brother' technology."

Anti-Crime group STOP CRIME SF agrees that there should be controls on facial recognition technology, but says San Francisco is going too far.

FRANK NOTO, PRESIDENT STOP CRIME SF "It can save lives. If someone has dementia and they wander off, then it would be a good way of identifying them. If there's a kidnapping, that's another way of identifying them and saving lives. In terms of crime, if you can find someone who is a repeat offender, this is a great way to stop them."

MARK NIU SAN FRANCISCO "Companies and consumers like myself will still be able to use facial recognition technology in San Francisco. The rules don't stop private use. But the president of StopCrime SF believes one of the flaws in the ordinance is that if your security cameras capture facial recognition data, you won't be able to give that information to police to use."

PROFESSOR DON HEIDER SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY "I think anytime you see a company or organization sort of trying to not move forward too quickly with a new technology and think about what all the ethical implications are, how it might hurt people. It's always a good thing."

Heider, who's a professor of social ethics at Santa Clara University, says a key problem is the technology doesn't give a person control over how their information is being used or shared. He also cites a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study that found face analysis algorithms were more inaccurate when trying to distinguish women with darker skin.

PROFESSOR DON HEIDER SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY "There have a been a number of studies that have showed definitively that facial recognition is not very good for people of color. We could easily imagine a scenario where someone is misidentified and then there's a knock on their home and somebody gets hurt or killed, and it may be the wrong person."

But some analysts say, given time, the technology will only improve.

TIM BAJARIN, PRESIDENT CREATIVE STRATEGIES "Most of the facial recognition out there has not been tied to artificial intelligence databases as it will be 2-3 years from now. Artificial intelligence tied to specific types of databases that will take advantage of races, environment, etcetera, will eventually just make it better. You have to have more checks and balances, but I think it needs to be more narrowly focused as opposed to a broad brush."

Police departments in cities like New York, Boston and Las Vegas are already using the technology, while a number of other U.S. cities like Oakland and Sommerville, Massachusetts are considering bans. As biometric technology spreads, citizens around the world will increasingly debate the question-should someone else have access to the data that's written all over my face? Mark Niu, CGTN, San Francisco.