Based on publicly available records and a recent comment from a Cleveland official, it appears the Cleveland Division of Police has had the capability to use facial recognition technology as part of its processing of video evidence since as early as 2019.
It appears the program started when former Mayor Frank Jackson launched his citywide streetlight replacement and surveillance camera installation initiative in 2018.
That initiative, dubbed , in addition to swapping out all streetlights with LED bulbs, replaced the fixtures on city-owned light poles to accommodate city-owned cameras. Cleveland now has a network of around 1,400 cameras on streetlights and public buildings.
According to Board of Control records, Cleveland entered into contracts in 2019 with Paladin Protective Services, a local security system company, and Motorola Solutions for installation and monitoring of the new cameras. Motorola Solutions owns several facial recognition companies that are part of its video service.
According to NBC News, acquiring technology companies that sell body worn cameras, license plate readers and facial recognition technology.
Around the same time, the city hired a company that, among its services, analyzes police video using software called . That software includes facial recognition technology, according to Briefcam鈥檚 website. The city provided 海角破解版 with the Briefcam contract, which does not mention facial recognition. The city has not provided its contracts with Motorola and Paladin.
The law department responded to the records request for any facial recognition contracts by saying the police department 鈥渄oes not have any facial recognition software and or applications that is presently running on any of its video surveillance cameras.鈥�
They described Briefcan as, 鈥渁 video analytics tool which allows you to quickly search for vehicles, objects and patterns of traffic.鈥�
鈥淚 think this is like vendor creep,鈥� said Cleveland State University law professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich.
The city hired companies to set up the entire system 鈥� cameras, storage, video processing 鈥� and may not have been planning to start using facial recognition technology back then.
鈥淎nd then it鈥檚 like, 'Oh wait, one additional, little bonus functionality we鈥檙e getting here is we can use their facial recognition algorithm to do certain things,'鈥� Witmer-Rich said.
Chief Innovation and Technology Officer Froilan C. Roy Fernando acknowledged during city council鈥檚 safety committee meeting on April 27 that the city鈥檚 police department is using facial recognition technology as one of its options for video analysis.
In an exchange with Councilman Joe Jones, who asked whether the city uses facial recognition, Fernando described a camera system that can be used in several ways.
鈥淭hey can be programmed to recognize specific objects such as man, woman, dog without any identity,鈥� Fernando said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 up to our deployment as to what we鈥檙e looking for in a particular field of view. In some cases, for illegal dumping, we may just want to monitor for contaminants left by an object coming in there. In other cases, where there is a potential crime incident, maybe that camera can be programmed to identify facial recognition, yes.鈥�
When Jones followed to learn more about the city鈥檚 use of the technology, Director of Public Safety Karrie Howard cut off the conversation.
鈥淲hat I would like to do is, if possible, if we could speak about the capability of our camera system privately. You don鈥檛 want to say we have facial recognition,鈥� Howard said before changing the subject.
The use of facial recognition by law enforcement has been criticized as an invasion of privacy and an unreliable technology, .
by a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found commercially available facial recognition software incorrectly dark-skinned women by up to 34 percent.
According to Witmer-Rich, the technology has improved rapidly since that study was done. But, he said, some software is more accurate than others.
鈥溾�橫y first question is, 鈥楧o they have a written policy governing their use of facial recognition? And if so, can the citizens see it?鈥欌�� Witmer-Rich said.
The police department鈥檚 policies on how it can be used and by whom are not included in the publicly available policies, known as General Police Orders.
Cleveland police did not respond to a request for any policies covering the use of facial recognition.
The Center for Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law NYPD at times replaced grainy images of people committing crimes with photos of people officers thought the suspect resembled.
In one case, investigators swapped in a photograph of Woody Harrelson and in another a photograph of a professional basketball player to search for suspects. Officers also used artist鈥檚 sketches of suspects to find matches in their database.
by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers found algorithms used in facial recognition have to be adjusted to take into consideration race bias.
That can be done in part by setting a high bar for matches. It鈥檚 unclear whether Cleveland requires high degree of certainty in its matches or whether it tracks internally the false matches produced by the software it uses.
Witmer-Rich said residents of Cleveland should know more about what products the city uses and how they鈥檙e used, and they also have the right to be involved in the decision about whether facial recognition should be used at all.
鈥淔undamentally, even if your system works extremely well, we may just decide we don鈥檛 want you to use it because it鈥檚 too powerful of a tool, it invades into our privacy too much,鈥� Witmer-Rich said.
