The Georgetown University's Center on Privacy and Technology has recently launched a lawsuit against the NYPD for their secrecy over the facial recognition technology they are said to be using. They reportedly started using the technology back around 2011, and privacy advocates say that they aren't being forthcoming in detailing their use of the system as the law requires them to.
The privacy advocates say that the NYPD is failing to comply with the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) and it's believed that the facial recognition technology that they might be using could've possibly been used on thousands of occasions in connection with thousands of arrests.
It's alleged that the NYPD has responded to requests for information by claiming that they don't have any user guides or training manuals pertaining to such technology. But the privacy advocates don't think this is the case and they think there could be a possibility that the police department is using the technology without the proper oversight or training.
If they are using the technology and they cannot find any records related to it then that is also concerning to privacy advocates. The absence of that information suggests that the police might not be operating the technology under the proper control.
How Did This All Come About?
The Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown had been working on a year-long study that had them collect the data regarding facial recognition technology from dozens of police agencies across the country.
And they were able to receive the data from roughly 90 different agencies around the U.S., but when it came time to collect from the NYPD, they said that there were zero records related to their use of that technology. None.
What the group did receive from the police department was a memo which detailed how the officers should go about using the results found from utilizing such technology. It's suggested that this instruction meme potentially supports the notion that the department does have people who are tasked with conducting searches using facial recognition technology.
Their lack of transparency in the matter is rather alarming to civil liberties experts. At the moment there are no federal restrictions in place regarding the use of facial recognition technology for law enforcement. It will be interesting to see what comes of the suit and if they get their documents, as well as what that will tell them for their study.
Pics:
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Sources:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-face-recognition-idUSKBN17Y1Z1
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/02/nypd-refuses-to-disclose-information-about-its-face-recognition-program-so-privacy-researchers-are-suing/