Controversial Detroit facial recognition program prompts public meeting
Emma KeithAs Detroit police advance the use of controversial facial recognition technology, citizens can make their opinions on surveillance heard at a police meeting Thursday.
The Detroit Police Commissioners Board will meet at 6:30 p.m. at St. John’s Lutheran Church to lead a community discussion on the technology.
"21st century policing was supposed to be the blueprint to help communities and law enforcement agencies across the country to strengthen trust and collaboration while continuing to reduce crime," a flyer for the discussion reads. "But in 2019, is 21st century policing becoming the end to personal privacy?"
Detroit is one of two cities, including Chicago, to invest in facial recognition technology for policing purposes, according to a May report from Georgetown University.
Last month, San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban its government from using facial recognition technology.
Detroit's expansive surveillance initiatives started in 2016, when the city implemented Project Green Light.
The program placed security cameras, which provide a live feed to the Detroit Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center, in over 500 Detroit gas stations, churches, apartment complexes, senior living communities and more.
A year later, Detroit signed a $1 million contract with DataWorks Plus, a surveillance vendor whose technology can allow the city to monitor and screen live video, according to the Georgetown report.
In a May 14 response to the Georgetown report, Detroit Police Chief James Craig wrote that the city was only using facial recognition technology on still images, not on Green Light's live video feeds.
"If I have not made it clear by now, DPD does not violate the constitutional rights of citizens," Craig wrote. "As emphasized in our policies, the facial recognition software is only utilized within the ambits and parameters of the law to assist law enforcement in reports of criminal activity."
Detroit's policy for the use of the technology states that the DPD “may connect the face recognition system to any interface that performs live video, including cameras, drone footage, and body-worn cameras.”
DPD Assistant Chief Dave LeValley echoed Craig's letter in a statement to the Free Press, saying DPD does not use the technology on live video:
"Videos fed into the Real Time Crime Center are used only to obtain still images of an individual suspected in a criminal offense for purposes of identifying the suspect. Those still images are used to search known databases or repositories of criminal mugshots, state driver’s license photographs, and state identification card photographs. Any images taken during a First Amendment-protected public event, activity, or affiliation would only be used under exigent circumstances that would require the express approval of the Chief or his designee and a report to the Board of Police Commissioners after such use."
Scrutiny of facial recognition has come from places like the U.S. House of Representatives, where U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Justin Amash have participated in hearings to examine the technology's use.
"With little to no input, the city of Detroit created one of the nation's most pervasive and sophisticated surveillance networks with real-time facial recognition technology," Tlaib said at a May 22 hearing. "Detroit's $1 million face-scanning system is now tracking our residents on hundreds of public and private cameras."
In a series of May and June hearings this year, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, including Tlaib, questioned government agencies on facial recognition technology, pushing for greater transparency in how and when the technology is used.
"My residents in the 13th congressional (district) are burdened with challenges that most Americans couldn't bear themselves, and laid on top of these economic challenges and structural racism ... is the fact that policing our communities has become more militarized and flawed," Tlaib said during the hearing. "Now we have for-profit companies pushing so-called 'technology' that has never been tested in communities of color, let alone been studied enough to conclude that it makes our communities safer."
The Georgetown report also criticized Detroit's system for placing surveillance cameras at institutions like Summit Medical Center, a Detroit clinic that provides private services like abortions and STD testing.
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