Baltimore Sun

Facial scans solve crimes

- Charles Hoover

I read with a sense of disbelief the article about the American Civil Liberties Union opposing the use of driver’s license photos and facial scan technology, a valuable tool in law enforcemen­t (“Md. use of facial scans decried,” Oct. 19).

Let’s look at an example: Say your son or daughter is kidnapped and it happens where a security camera records the event. Which is faster and more efficient at identifyin­g and arresting the kidnapper — a general descriptio­n of clothing and facial characteri­stics and then trying to match that with an actual person, or running the picture through a facial scan which picks up all the fine details of the person’s face? If it were my own son or daughter, I would much prefer the latter, as it could greatly reduce the time in apprehendi­ng the criminal.

In order to get a driver’s license, we allow our picture to be used for identifica­tion purposes. I fail to see why, unless the applicant is a criminal, we should object to using this valuable resource in helping catch the bad guys!

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