At least five additional US states enact comprehensive bans on public-sector facial recognition by December 31, 2028.
Privacy advocates continue pushing state-level bans on government and police use of biometric surveillance. Resolves true if five new US states sign legislation restricting public facial recognition.
Across 6 frontier models answering independently, the panel thinks this is unlikely: the median is 19%.
They broadly agree, 25 points between GPT at 37% and Qwen at 12%.
Nothing is settled until 23 Sept 2029, when the outcome is checked against sources and every number above gets a permanent score.
What each one said
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GPTOpenAI
Five enactments depend on privacy coalitions overcoming police and municipal resistance in a short number of legislative cycles.
- Only a small set of states, notably Maine, Montana and Vermont, have enacted broad government facial-recognition limits to date.
- Five new laws require governors and legislatures to act in the 2027 and 2028 sessions; narrower police-use rules would not qualify.
- A major documented misuse scandal or federal pullback on biometrics would sharply raise the odds, while AI-crime politics favors exceptions.
37% -
DeepSeekDeepSeek
This turns on whether privacy groups can convert 2024-26 momentum into five full state bans before the 2028 legislative calendar closes.
- Only about 2-4 states have enacted meaningful public-sector facial recognition restrictions so far, and most are narrow (e.g., police use limits), not comprehensive bans.
- State legislatures move slowly: a bill must pass both chambers and get a governor's signature, and many sessions are biennial or short, leaving roughly two full cycles…
- The strongest tailwind is federal inaction and local surveillance scandals; the biggest brake is law-enforcement lobbying and the fact that even blue states have…
22% -
GeminiGoogle
Legislative appetite has pivoted toward regulating and auditing police facial recognition rather than enacting outright bans.
- Only a handful of states have ever passed strict bans, with recent state bills overwhelmingly favoring warrants over prohibitions.
- Law enforcement lobbying and public-safety concerns consistently stall full public-sector prohibitions across legislative sessions.
- Reaching five new states requires unprecedented momentum that a few municipal-level bans simply fail to replicate statewide.
19% -
GrokxAI
Five more comprehensive state FR bans by end-2028 requires unusually fast legislative clustering.
- Most legislatures must pass and governors sign in 2027-28 sessions; law-enforcement opposition and vendor lobbying routinely kill or water down bills.
- 2019-2025 produced only a handful of true public-sector bans (VT, ME, OR plus partials); the 2.25-year window sits well below that slow rate.
- A high-profile wrongful-arrest scandal or federal preemption fight could accelerate passage, but neither is priced in as likely.
18% -
ClaudeAnthropic
Depends on whether state legislatures accelerate comprehensive FRT bans beyond the current slow, patchwork pace.
- Only a handful of states (e.g., Vermont, Virginia, Maine) have passed comprehensive public-sector facial recognition bans over the past 5-6 years, showing a slow base…
- Most new state biometric laws are narrower (moratoria, use-case restrictions, transparency rules) rather than comprehensive bans, making 'five more comprehensive bans' a…
- A major driver like a federal AI/privacy backlash, high-profile wrongful-arrest scandal, or coordinated advocacy campaign could push several states over the line before…
15% -
QwenAlibaba
Most states that would ban public-sector FR have already acted; the remaining pool is politically hostile to such bans.
- As of 2026, roughly 7-9 states (IL, MA, VT, VA, WA, CA, OR, ME, NH) have enacted some form of public-sector FR restriction; the low-hanging fruit is gone.
- The remaining ~40 states skew Republican or moderate, where law-enforcement lobbying and public-safety framing make comprehensive bans very unlikely; base rate of new…
- A catalyst like a major federal scandal or a Supreme Court ruling expanding Fourth Amendment biometric protections could shift this, but no such trigger is currently on…
12%
6 of 6 models answered · 25 points between the highest and lowest. None was shown the market price.
Question sourced from a news sweep on 24 Sept 2026. Forecast by google/gemini-3.8-flash, anthropic/claude-sonnet-5, openai/gpt-5.6-terra, x-ai/grok-4.6, deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash, qwen/qwen3.8-max-0902 via OpenRouter.