Daytona Beach approves police facial recognition searches of driver’s license photos

Daytona Beach City Commission has approved a proposed agreement between the city’s police chief and Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles so it can search state driver’s license records with facial recognition.

The MoU with the state agency compliments an existing agreement with Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) to use the FR-Net and FACESNXT systems. The new, separate MoU authorizes the use of data from the state system with requests from Daytona Beach Police Department to Pinellas County.

The MoU “for Access to Biometric Facial Analysis System” (sic) stipulates quarterly quality control reviews that would log how many people use the system and how many cases of misuse are identified. Daytona Beach Police will also have to complete an “Internal Control and Data Safety” audit within a year and submit it to the DMV.

The agreement also explicitly notes that biometric comparison returns investigative leads, not a “positive comparison.”

Local outlet Click Orlando reports that while some area residents have concerns about the controls on the use of facial recognition, they are more concerned about the privacy risks associated with Flock ALPR cameras.

More than 275 agencies have agreements to use Pinellas County’s facial recognition, according to the EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance. The Face Analysis Comparison & Examination System (FACES), which runs Idemia algorithms, is one of the longest-running in American law enforcement. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri also chairs the National Sheriffs’ Association’s facial recognition working group.

PCSO is currently embroiled in a wrongful arrest lawsuit related to facial recognition, along with Jacksonville Beach Police Department (JBPD). JBPD arrested a Fort Myers man after the FACESNXT system returned a 93 percent match probability score, according to local NPR outlet WUSF. The suspect has since been cleared of the charges, and PCSO said in its response to the allegations that the JBPD was wrong in his determination of probable cause, calling it “a people problem.”

The ACLU says it knows of 14 other people in the U.S. who have experienced the same people problem.

Article Topics

biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  Face Analysis Comparison & Examination System (FACES)  |  facial recognition  |  Florida  |  law enforcement  |  Pinellas County Sheriff's Office