At its August 4 meeting, the Gadsden City Council in Alabama approved an agreement that will give the city’s police department direct access to Clearview AI’s facial-recognition search platform.
The department had already used the technology in an investigation that led to an arrest. The new arrangement brings that search capability in-house, allowing authorized personnel to submit probe images during investigations.
Clearview’s platform compares an uploaded facial image with a database the company says contains more than 70 billion images collected from publicly accessible web sources. Search results are intended to generate investigative leads rather than establish identity as conclusive evidence.
The company says users must enter a case number and crime type before running a search, creating an audit record for the query. Its published principles also require government customers to make their own assessment of a potential match and corroborate it with other evidence.
Gadsden joins a growing group of U.S. municipalities that have considered local authorization for the technology. The Lawton Police Department in Oklahoma moved into active use after its city council approved a policy governing facial-recognition searches.
El Cerrito, California, also implemented Clearview AI for police investigations under a policy that limited searches to specified crimes and required supervisory approval. Local rules can define who may use a system, which investigations qualify, and how potential matches must be reviewed.
The Gadsden meeting agenda lists the council action, while the local report confirms that the approved vendor is Clearview AI. The materials publicly available with the agenda do not set out the contract value, license count or a detailed departmental-use policy.
Policies governing police facial recognition commonly address accuracy, disclosure, documentation and human review, especially when a possible match contributes to an arrest or other enforcement action. Clearview’s database also draws on images collected from publicly accessible websites.
The approval shifts Gadsden from occasional access to a standing departmental capability. Further details about training, oversight and search volumes are likely to determine how extensively officers use the system.
Sources: City of Gadsden, The Anniston Star, Clearview AI
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
