Facial Recognition in use by Los Angeles Police Department
Information Certainty: Documented
Deployment Purpose: Surveillance
| Summary |
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Products and Institutions:
Status and Events:
| Status | Ongoing |
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| Events | Start (2 January 2004, Documented, , No description) |
| Start Date | |
| End Date |
Users:
| Involved Entities | Los Angeles County Sherrif's Department |
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| Managed by | Los Angeles Police Department |
| Used by | Los Angeles Police Department |
Location:
| City | Los Angeles (CA) |
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| Country ⠉ | USA |
Description[ ]
The LAPD have used facial recognition since 2004. In 2020 it was found that the LAPD had access to regional databases. They have also used police body cameras for facial recognition, which were banned in 2019. However this ban (SB 1038) is set to expire. The LAPD uses facial recognition to create posters of wanted persons, it also uses data collected from FRT to anticipate future crimes (predictive policing).
The truth is that, while it does not have its own facial recognition platform, LAPD personnel have access to facial recognition software through a regional database maintained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department 3
SB 1038 applies only to police body cameras. Use of facial recognition continues in many other venues, although it remains extremely controversial 2
The technology used in Los Angeles is from DataWorks Plus, a South Carolina company that expanded into facial recognition from mugshot services. In 2019, a federal study of more than 100 facial recognition systems, including software used by DataWorks Plus, determined that they falsely identified Black and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more often than white faces 3
LAPD can submit images to the DMS that have been “enhanced,” cropped, or adjusted. LAPD already has the technology to create a model of a person’s face[10] from a blurred video, and photo filters to “extract” tattoos.[11] Images manipulated in this way can still be submitted to FRT for analysis and a search for a “match.”With FRT search results, LAPD can create wanted posters, ‘Be On the Look Out’ (BOLOS) posters, and digital “suspect” line-ups. Police can also check the identification of folks against “hot lists” and create system alerts and notifications for future “matches” of an image or person 1
References
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- a b "Despite past denials, LAPD has used facial recognition software 30,000 times in last decade, records show". (2020) <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-21/lapd-controversial-facial-recognition-software> Accessed: 2022-06-09
- ^ "Editorial: Police body cams shouldn't be surveillance tools". (2022) <https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-05-31/facial-recognition-undermines-police-bodycams> Accessed: 2022-06-09
- ^ "Factsheet: Facial Recognition Technology (FRT)". (2020) <https://stoplapdspying.org/facial-recognition-factsheet/> Accessed: 2022-06-09