Nijeer Parks, right, was wrongly arrested after facial recognition technology led police in New Jersey to believe he was the man seen in a driver's licence photo, left. A New Jersey man who was wrongly jailed after being misidentified through facial recognition software has a message for two Ontario police agencies now using the same technology.Parks, now 36, spent 10 days behind bars for a January 2019 theft and assault on a police officer that he didn't commit.
The man was accused of stealing snacks from a hotel gift shop in Woodbridge, N.J., and nearly running over an officer as he later sped away. York and Peel police both said separately the software would be used as an additional tool to provide investigative leads and will not serve as the sole basis for an arrest. They also said the system would not be used to analyze live video.
In a video posted online, a Peel Regional Police officer demonstrates Idemia's facial recognition software. An online demonstration of Idemia's Face Expert software shows it can be used to match images from a database with faces seen in CCTV video.