Facial recognition key in identifying uncooperative suspect
Facial recognition technology, which has drawn criticism from civil liberties activists in recent years, was used to identify the suspect in Thursday’s newsroom shooting that left five dead in Annapolis, Maryland.
Police said suspect Jarrod Ramos, who had an arrest record, refused to cooperate with authorities after he was taken into custody, and his fingerprints could not immediately be identified.
“We would have been longer in identifying him and being able to push forward in the investigation without that system,” said Anne Arundel County police chief Timothy Altomare.
“It was a huge win for us last night and for the citizens of Anne Arundel County.”
As facial recognition use grew for applications in law enforcement, border security and commercial purposes, activists warned of privacy risks for databases, which were largely unregulated.
The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services had a facial recognition database since 2011, which was never audited, according to a 2016 Privacy & Technology report by the Georgetown University Centre.
The report noted that Maryland’s data-base had some seven million images from drivers’ licence images and three million from “known offenders”, adding that it could search the FBI “mugshot” database of 24.9 million people.
Facial recognition is used to unlock the new iPhone X and can be incorporated into payment technology — the so-called “smile to pay” system.
Yet activists warned that facial recognition could be used for warrantless surveillance and that the technology was imperfect, with errors considerably higher for people of colour and women.
Some point to China’s use of facial recognition to identify dissidents and jaywalkers, in some cases displaying photos of offenders on electronic billboards.
Revelations that United States tech giant Amazon was working with law enforcement on its face recognition system called Rekognition sparked protests and petitions to halt those efforts.
But dozens of other tech firms, including Microsoft and Facebook, also use facial recognition technology, which relies on algorithms that scan a person’s face to match against images in other databases. Google for example uses it to help people find family and friends in their picture libraries.
According to the report, Maryland’s system uses NEC and Cognitec face recognition algorithms. It found that nearly one in two American adults are in a facial recognition database and that few agencies had meaningful protections to prevent the misuse of the technology.