New Jersey cops told to halt all use of controversial facial-recognition technology

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Updated Jan 25, 9:13 AM; Posted Jan 24, 4:46 PM

 

 

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By Blake Nelson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The state attorney general is ordering all New Jersey police to stop using a powerful new facial-recognition technology that’s pulling millions of photos from social media.

The order was issued Friday to county prosecutors, concerning a New York-based company called Clearview AI.

“Like many people, I was troubled,” state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said about the company’s techniques, which were first reported by The New York Times.

Clearview promotes itself as an effective way to track down dangerous people. It takes partial credit for the recent arrests in New Jersey of 19 men who police say tried to lure children for sex. The company’s main promotional video even featured Grewal and two state troopers at an October press conference about that operation.

Grewal said it was “irresponsible” for the company to reveal investigative techniques, and his office sent Clearview a cease-and-desist letter Friday to stop using that footage.

Tor Ekeland, a Clearview lawyer, wrote in an email that they would take the video down, and it was no longer at the top of the company’s website Friday evening.

Facial-recognition technology has long been used in the state. The Motor Vehicle Commission began using one version almost a decade ago to hunt for fraud, and a state report credited the tool with hundreds of arrests.

https://www.nj.com/news/2020/01/new-jersey-cops-told-to-halt-all-use-of-controversial-facial-recognition-technology.html

Edited January 26, 2020 by 90DayFinancier