San Diego law enforcement authorities are increasingly using facial recognition technology, according to a new report from NBC 7 San Diego. According to its investigation, in 2013, when San Diego County Police first launched their Tactical Identification System (TACIDS), which uses facial recognition technology for biometric identification in the field, there were 134 devices being used by 67 agents; now, 433 devices are being used by 991 agents.
Accordingly, the authorities have ramped up investment in the technology, having budgeted $100,000 to TACIDS when it launched and expanded the budget to $800,000 for 2014, with federal grants now also helping to pay for the program. And while it’s primarily used by the San Diego Police Department, it is also used by organizations like the San Diego Unified School District and the University of California.
NBC 7 reports a growing concern from privacy advocates over the use of this technology; and given previous reporting from local media and the uproar that emerged when a local school attempted to use facial recognition for student login on school-issued iPads, it appears to be a salient issue in the region. Nevertheless, officials insist their use of the technology is appropriate and non-intrusive, with an SDPD spokesperson pointing out that images collected for identification are not stored, and are matched only against mugshots in San Diego County’s ARJIS Facial Recognition Platform. Of the SDPD’s 7,900 queries to the database since TACIDS’ implementation, the technology has been used to find 7,700 matches.
It’s a case in point of the rising use of biometric identification technologies by law enforcement authorities around the world, helping to illustrate the emerging privacy concerns as well as the technology’s evident utility and authorities’ growing enthusiasm for it.
Source: NBC 7 San Diego
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May 6, 2016 – by Alex Perala
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