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Hi, I’m Jamie Condliffe. Greetings from London. Here’s a look at the week’s tech news:

“The facial recognition genie, so to speak, is just emerging from the bottle,” Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, wrote in December, when he called for regulation of the technology.

San Francisco just put it back in.

On Tuesday, the city’s Board of Supervisors banned the use of facial recognition software by the police and other city agencies in an 8-to-1 vote. Supporters said its use by government was an invasion of privacy incompatible with healthy democracy. Departments will now need to first submit proposals and post public notices to use the technology. Private-sector and federal use isn’t affected.

That the ban was introduced by San Francisco, a city pivotal to the development of the technology, was viewed by some as a siren call. “This is like Detroit banning a certain model of vehicle because it’s too dangerous,” said Alvaro Bedoya, a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. “You may not live in Detroit, but, boy, you’d think twice before getting in that car.”