Public struggles to disentangle US law enforcement visions for facial recognition

Police in the U.S. appear determined to deploy facial recognition technology, though less aligned on details about what biometric reference database to use or how suspects should be identified. Police in Milwaukee are seeing opposition from the community over a proposed facial recognition implementation. And the Oklahoma City police force has signed a contract with Clearview AI, the facial recognition firm that has faced multiple lawsuits over its collection of biometrics from social media and other public sources.

City commission opposes FRT for Milwaukee police

A blog from the Wisconsin Justice Initiative says the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission has unanimously approved a resolution opposing the implementation of facial recognition technology by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD).

The FRT in question is part of a system provided by Biometrica. It differs from many facial recognition systems in how it collects biometrics, and what database it compares them to. Biometrica does not use standard CCTV cameras and does not store records or images of anyone who has not been previously confirmed as a felony convict, a wanted suspect or a missing person. It says it uses a deidentification process designed to be compliant with GDPR.

Nonetheless, the Equal Rights Commission’s resolution calls on chair Tony Snell to draft and send a formal letter to Police Chief Jeffrey Norman, highlighting the commission’s findings following a June hearing at which MPD representatives “discussed their prior secret use of the technology.”

The new resolution states that the material acquired by the commission “affirms that FRT carries the potential for disproportionate impacts and inaccuracies, especially when applied to individuals in protected classes.”

A notable voice in opposition comes from Emilio De Torre, executive director of the Milwaukee Turners, the oldest civic group in the city. De Torre calls the resolution “a significant official declaration of what the people of Milwaukee have been saying all along: there are no acceptable guardrails that can be installed that would protect our identities and privacy in a satisfactory way.”

“Milwaukee does NOT need to open itself up to more civil rights abuses, anti-immigrant tactics and costly lawsuits.”

The U.S. plans to continue and scale its would-be immigration crackdown, meaning that the potential for misuse of facial recognition tech has grown and will continue to grow in tandem with the size of the police state.

That said, there appears to be continued misunderstanding regarding the nature of Biometrica’s system in its Milwaukee proposal.

Clearview AI FRT to be deployed in Oklahoma City

There is no such misunderstanding about Clearview AI, the company specializing in facial recognition technology for law enforcement, and in defending lawsuits against said technology.

Despite a settlement in which it lost 23 percent of its value to claimants in a biometric data privacy lawsuit and ongoing challenges of the legality of its business, Clearview has just signed a fresh $37,000 contract with police in Oklahoma City.

A report from KOCO News 5 quotes Sgt. Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department, who promises it can’t be used as probable cause for an arrest, another point of past misunderstanding.

“It is simply a lead in a case or a tip,” Knight says. “Sometimes we will have a deceased person, and we simply don’t know who they are. Nobody’s reported them missing, fingerprints haven’t helped, and we’ve got nothing. In this case, that technology can help us.”

Detectives must obtain approval from two different supervisors before a picture can be processed through the facial recognition software.

“An investigator cannot just look at the image that comes back to them with a name and say, ‘We’re going to go arrest this guy.’ That’s not the case. It’s not probable cause for an arrest in and of itself. It must be combined with other things that you would have with any other criminal investigation.”

The department is currently writing its FRT policy and plans to undergo “extensive training before utilizing this new tool.”

Virginia police dept. launches facial recognition program under strict oversight

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  Biometrica  |  biometrics  |  Clearview AI  |  facial recognition  |  Milwaukee Police Department  |  Oklahoma  |  police  |  United States