NJ Supreme Court upholds police FRT disclosure requirement

New Jersey Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that law enforcement in the state must disclose its use of facial recognition during investigations as part of the discovery process in court proceedings. The decision partly sides with the state though, in excluding proprietary information like the source code of the facial recognition software used from the discovery demands.

The ruling in State v. Miles (via Thomson Reuters) partially reverses the decision by a state appellate court that relied on an interpretation of State v. Arteaga that State Supreme Court Justice Lee Solomon Fasciale described as overly “mechanical” in allowing the demand for source code as part of discovery. The court ruled in Arteaga that police were obligated to disclose 13 pieces of information about the facial recognition system used by detectives before laying charges, which the appellate court took as precedence in Miles.

“Such discovery cannot be reduced to a rigid thirteen-item checklist; a defendant’s entitlement varies depending on the specifics of the case,” writes Fasciale.

In Miles’ case, New Jersey police must disclose the facial recognition software and data they used before they charged him with first-degree murder, along with how they used it. “Metrics of performance” are included, and Arteaga asked for (and was granted) NIST FRVT results as one of the 13 points, but the key items are the biometric software’s name and developer, what reference database was used, all versions of the probe image used and the match candidates returned.

Some of this information was already provided by the prosecution after lower court decisions.

Miles’ case had attracted the support of the ACLU, the Innocence Project and the EFF.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  false arrest  |  law enforcement  |  New Jersey