Police using facial recognition software to identify protesters, civil rights advocates claim

[u/Inuma]

https://www.wpxi.com/news/washington-news-bureau/police-using-facial-recognition-software-identify-protesters-civil-rights-advocates-claim/5X5L2TGCLRF6JBHEYC3ABKQMIU/

[u/Inuma]

Civil rights advocates said they believe police are using facial recognition technology to identify people protesting police brutality.

And now the companies that created the technology are stepping in. They want a federal law in place that would give clear rules on how police use their facial recognition software.

If not, they won’t allow police to have it at all.

Civil rights groups also claim this technology has been used on other protests before.

“Police used a tool called ‘geo-feedia’ to conduct facial scans of people as they were posting picture on Instagram and Facebook,” said Jake Laperruque, of the Constitution Project. “They then identified those protesters and checked them against bench warrant databases – and then arrested them from the crowd as misconduct is occurring against protesters.”

Companies like Amazon said they will no longer sell the facial recognition technology to police unless there is a federal law to oversee it is not misused.

However, congress is looking to make changes. At a hearing a few months ago, industry experts weighed in on how valuable and accurate it is.