Facial recognition in policing is getting state-by-state guardrails

By Paige Gross

The AI behind newer police identification tactics is controversial, and instances of false arrests and privacy concerns are drawing lawmakers’ attention.

In January 2020, Farmington Hills, Mich., resident Robert Williams spent 30 hours in police custody after an algorithm listed him as a potential match for a suspect in a robbery committed a year and a half earlier.

The city’s police department had sent images from the security footage at the Detroit watch store to Michigan State Police to run through its facial recognition technology. An expired driver’s license photo of Williams in the state police database was a possible match, the technology said.