Get the news that matters to all Californians. Start every week informed.California's Legislature is considering making it illegal for police to use facial recognition technology as the sole justification for a search or arrest. Critics say it won't stop wrongful arrests. Photo by Rahul Lal, Sipa USA via ReutersThree men falsely arrested based on face recognition technology have joined the fight against a California bill that aims to place guardrails around police use of the technology.
Such a bill “would not have stopped the police from falsely arresting me in front of my wife and daughters,” Robert Williams told CalMatters in a statement. In 2020, Detroit police accused Williams of stealing watches worth thousands of dollars — the first known instance ofin the United States — after facial recognition matched a surveillance video to a photo of Williams in a state database.
The first face recognition searches in the United States took place more than two decades ago. It’s a process that begins with a photo of a suspect typically taken from security camera footage. Face recognition on your iPhone is trained to match your photo, but the kind used by law enforcement agencies searches databases of mug shots or drivers license photos can contain millions of photos, and can fail in numerous ways.
“I got lucky,” he told CalMatters in a phone interview about a receipt that exonerated him and kept him out of prison. “I don’t want to see anybody sitting in jail for something they didn’t do.” Face recognition alone should never lead to false arrests, Jake Parker with the Security Industry Association told members of the California Assembly a few weeks ago. That’s why AB 1814 is meant to corroborate investigative leads with evidence, not just a possible face recognition match.
“By allowing police to scan and identify people without limitation, AB 1814 will also increase unnecessary police interactions that too often have the potential to escalate into fatal encounters. This will remain true regardless of how accurate face recognition technology becomes,” the organizations said in a letter. “There is no way for people to find out if facial recognition is used against them and no mechanism to make sure the police comply with the law.