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.

We looked at five cities and the steps and policies that are bringing new technology to city hall.

For five years, officials at the Department of Human Services in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania have been working on a tool to triage calls made to the county’s child protection services hotline, one of many used around the country

Last month, San Francisco became the first municipality in the country to ban the use of facial recognition by city departments. Later today, Somerville, Massachusetts may join its ranks. Agencies in other cities, however, aren’t waiting for city councils to weigh in, implementing policies that bar the use of facial recognition. Though the agency-level limits are not subject to the public development and enforcement that support city or state-level rules, they can be important measures in an agency’s own relationship with residents.

Unwilling to wait for federal regulation to develop, municipal leaders from California to Massachusetts are pushing their own rules on the acquisition and use of facial recognition technology.