As governments build smart cities and businesses deploy commercial tools, the commercial potential of facial recognition is competing with civil liberty concerns and protections for individuals’ private information.

MuckRock and Open the Government sending public records requests about facial recognition technology to hundreds of police agencies across the country. There’s lots more to do, however, so we put together a guide on doing your own investigations.

Two years after Boston Public Schools faced parental backlash over an algorithm to improve bus routing, school districts are looking to give the software another chance, drawn by potential to save millions.

Next week, MuckRock is joining public records campaigners at the third AlaveteliCon to discuss new tactics for opening up government algorithms, maintaining a healthy transparency community, and building stronger international collaborations.

In this week’s FOIA round-up, we take a look at experiments with transparency in Florida, Oregon, and Wisconsin that have recently hit road bumps.