Excerpt from Facial recognition used to identify Lafayette Square protester accused of assault
By Justin Jouvenal and Spencer S. Hsu November 2, 2020 ... The protester might never have been identified, but an officer found an image of the man on Twitter and investigators fed it into a facial recognition system, court documents state. They found a match and made an arrest. The court documents are believed to be the first public acknowledgment that authorities used the controversial technology in connection with the widely criticized sweep of largely peaceful protesters ahead of a photo op by President Trump. The case is one of a growing number nationwide in which authorities have turned to facial recognition software to help identify protesters accused of violence. The case also provides the first detailed look at a powerful new regional facial recognition system that officials said has been used more than 12,000 times since 2019 and contains a database of 1.4 million people but operates almost entirely outside the public view. Fourteen local and federal agencies have access. Public defenders, defense attorneys and facial recognition experts said they were unaware of the existence of the National Capital Region Facial Recognition Investigative Leads System (NCRFRILS). Several said the Lafayette Square case was the first time they had seen its use disclosed to a defendant despite thousands of searches in bank robberies, human trafficking and gang cases. ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/facial-recognition-protests-lafayette-square/2020/11/02/64b03286-ec86-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews_etskywarn.net
