Milwaukee Sheriff moves to integrate Biometrica despite MPD facial recognition freeze

Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) is in negotiations with Biometrica to join the network of law enforcement agencies using its UMbRA face biometrics database.

Sheriff Denita Ball and staff said this week that MCSO has already signed a letter of intent with Biometrica. Ball’s chief of staff James Burnett told Urban Milwaukee  the contract is currently at the “early drafting stage.”

Biometrica provides access to a database made up of mugshots from convicted criminals, people with felony arrest warrants and missing people. A third-party facial recognition algorithm matches probes submitted by police against deidentified records, and sends likely hits to a human reviewer, who can issue an alert. An agreement with Biometrica would give MCSO access to the database, while adding qualifying records from the county to it.

Milwaukee Police Department has also attempted to contract Biometrica’s services, prompting pushback, at least some of which reflected confusion about how the system works.

If the Sheriff’s Office completes a deal, it will have to go through review and vetting requirements for county contracts.

The county would not pay a license fee for the facial recognition technology, and therefore the deal would not be subject to approval by the County Board of Supervisors.

Any deal would require Milwaukee County Executive’s sign-off, however. A representative of County Executive David Crowley told Urban Milwaukee that he has not made any decision, but noted that he will prioritize protecting “personal data and civil liberties.”

The latest development follows only weeks after MPD halted its use of facial recognition technologies licensed by police in neighboring counties. The force took that action in response to a call from Fire and Police Commissioners for a moratorium on the use of FRT, and in recognition of the importance of public trust.

The mooted agreement between Biometrica and MPD would have added 2.5 million images to the database.

In theory, if MCSO signs a contract with Biometrica, it could perform facial recognition searches at the request of MPD.

Biometrica describes UMbRA as a privacy-first “law enforcement database without mass surveillance.”

Article Topics

Biometrica  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  law enforcement  |  Milwaukee  |  Milwaukee Police Department