Connecticut General Assembly is considering a bill that will prevent the use of facial recognition technology for commercial applications.Under the law, which is currently being considered, No person may capture a biometric identifier of an individual and use the biometric identifier for a commercial purpose unless the person informs the individual before capturing the biometric identifier, and receives the individual's consent to capture the biometric identifier and to use it for a commercial purpose.The “biometric identifier” refers to a record of face geometry, including, but not limited to, an image of an individual's face captured and stored utilizing facial recognition software.The act has been praised by tech commentators:”This type of reasonable approach to regulating new technology should serve as a model for state legislators considering regulation for other emerging technologies”, wrote an op-ed by Daniel Castro in Government Technology magazine.Late last week, Illinois State Senator Terry Link proposed changes to that state's biometric privacy act that could end ongoing lawsuits against social media firms there related to facial recognition. Link plans to add wording to the bill that could make gathering biometric data legal in the state – two of the lawsuits, against Facebook and Shutterfly, focus on so-called tagging of people in social media images. The proposed change would alter the definition of a “scan” to be an in-person experience only. The new language defines a scan as “data resulting from an in-person process whereby a part of the body is traversed by a detector or an electronic beam”. It also adds “physical or digital” photographs to the list of items that are not biometric identifiers.

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