LAPD Lied About Facial Recognition For YEARS!

[Rotadom]

After Years Of Claiming It Doesn't Use Facial Recognition Software, The LAPD Admits It Has Used It 30,000 Times Since 2009

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...s-it-has-used-it-30000-times-since-2009.shtml

The Los Angeles Police Department apparently loves using facial recognition tech. It doesn't like talking about its love for this tech, though. It told the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology it had nothing to give the Center when it asked for its facial recognition tech documents.

The Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly announced new face recognition initiatives—including a “smart car” equipped with face recognition and real-time face recognition cameras—yet the agency claimed to have “no records responsive” to our document request.

The LAPD flatly denied using the tech as recently as 2019.

"We actually do not use facial recognition in the Department," Rubenstein told the LA Times in 2019, adding an exception of "a few limited instances" where outside agencies used it during joint investigations.

Here's what the LA Times has discovered, thanks to public records that the LAPD finally decided to stop withholding.

The Los Angeles Police Department has used facial recognition software nearly 30,000 times since 2009, with hundreds of officers running images of suspects from surveillance cameras and other sources against a massive database of mug shots taken by law enforcement.

The new figures, released to The Times, reveal for the first time how commonly facial recognition is used in the department, which for years has provided vague and contradictory information about how and whether it uses the technology.

 

[loveupskirt]

I admit ignorance on the subject, but what's the issue here? Were rights violated?

 

[L3gacy]

I hate to break this to you, and I’m not being a dick at all, so don’t misunderstand.
This is the industry that I am in. 99% of the cameras going out these days have some sort of analytics that do facial recognition. Cheaper cameras have them built in (ie homeowners). Much more expensive use VMS (video management software) to do this. Access control systems are using them in buildings now, Blue tooth from your phone followed by a facial recognition from a camera, before the maglock is disengaged.
As far as the legality, I don’t know the specifics so I can’t logically comment on it.
It does sucks as this isn’t what this platform was designed for.

 

[HisArpy]

I'm well aware. Technology is progressing so quickly there's not enough time to have them reviewed by ethics committees or have government regulations put in place to stop this invasive behaviour. Having a laissez faire attitude and throwing your hands up in the air in defeat
will not protect our civil and human rights. The more aware of and outraged people are of these gross infractions against our basic rights the harder it will be to take them away from us.

One the one hand it's this.

On the other hand, the fact that the LAPD fucking LIED repeatedly is a whole different subject.

Since when do we allow our government to flat out lie to us and do nothing about it? Did we not learn ANYTHING about Susan Rice and "it was a video"?

 

[Conager]

Yes, they lied. The "authorities" that everyone loves except when they or some favored group are targeted lied. Imagine that.

It's called "sources and methods."

Law enforcement was lying for years about Stingrays as rumors of their existence came out.

Ethics has nothing to do with it. Privacy, where you have no legal expectation of privacy has nothing to do with it.

There is no difference except speed and efficiency between using facial recognition and having squads of humans doing the very same thing whether it is on a stakeout or after the fact by having a human looking at videotape and comparing what they see to mugshots and driver's licence pictures. Appeals to the public for help in identifying a suspect is defacto, crowd-sourced "facial recognition." They can't do that with every case because the public will eventually tune out and often disadvantageous to let the suspect know that they are looking specifically for him..

What you do in public is not private. Identifying a suspect from a video is not an invasion of privacy. Neither is using public DNA ancestry databases to exclude ot include suspects an invasion of privacy.

If the general public did not know that they can be identified by fingerprints the police would have no duty whatsoever to reveal there sources and methods for identifying criminals. It only becomes an issue if you intend to use your source or method as evidence at trial. This is why when police departments knew for a fact that a person was at a particular location that they claimed they were not based on stingray data or information subpoenaed from cell phone towers that police did not enter that into evidence because they did not want criminals to change their behavior to avoid detection. The police don't have to help you avoid detection.

The NYT has blood on its hands because they let Bin Laden know that he was being tracked by cell phone usage. So he quit using a cell phone. It took years of painstaking work, back tracking a courier who was literally using a donkey to find Bin Laden.

Policing agencies are not weighing the public's right to know, because the public doesn't have a right to know how they're getting caught committing a crime. There merely weighing whether the public knowing a particular detection technique will be rendered moot by that public knowledge.

 

[HisArpy]

I agree with you. Being blatantly lied to by the LAPD is disgraceful. Perhaps a class action lawsuit by anyone arrested during by the LAPD in the past 11 years is in order.

Way to make it partisan Harpy.
As to Susan Rice and Benghazi? Apparently more than one Republican investigation into the attack cleared her of any wrongdoing. Did they lie about the video? Who tf knows? The CIA are sketchy af. Unfortunately the American public has been lied to so often they've become inured to the lies and just accept them. And because of this you end up with people who just shrug off any erosion to the basic rights of freedom and privacy to which we are all entitled.

The facts are known, it wasn't a video that caused the storming of the embassy. Susan Rice went on national TV several times in a row to promote a lie because that's what she was told to do by her superiors.

You equate that lie with "wrongdoing" which is not what I'm doing here.

I'm tired of being lied to by the government. They can classify information based on security issues, but when they flat out lie to the people they serve with no repercussions in ANY form, it's an indication that something is broken in our society as we need to fix it.

WE need to stop voting for the liars, cheats, and scumbags who maintain their cushy seats at the public trough.

 

[Conager]

I agree with you. Being blatantly lied to by the LAPD is disgraceful. Perhaps a class action lawsuit by anyone arrested during by the LAPD in the past 11 years is in order.

Way to make it partisan Harpy.
As to Susan Rice and Benghazi? Apparently more than one Republican investigation into the attack cleared her of any wrongdoing. Did they lie about the video? Who tf knows? The CIA are sketchy af. Unfortunately the American public has been lied to so often they've become inured to the lies and just accept them. And because of this you end up with people who just shrug off any erosion to the basic rights of freedom and privacy to which we are all entitled.




From the article in the op:
The Los Angeles Police Department has repeatedly announced new face recognition initiatives—including a “smart car” equipped with face recognition and real-time face recognition cameras—yet the agency claimed to have “no records responsive” to our document request

Real time face recognition? Creepy af.
Accepting invasive technology by law enforcement agencies? That becomes the tired old argument of "I did nothing wrong so why should I care?" ignorant people trot out when they lose the very freedom and privacies that they make such a fuss over protecting when they are asked to wear a mask out of consideration for others.

Dropped phone in puddle keeps adding unintentional title icons

All humans have "real-time facial recognition capability."

Licence plate scanners are no different other than efficiency than an officer typing in your plate number.

None of this enhanced capability has anything to with privacy or "creepy."

The fact that you *have* to have a licence plate and that it is tied to *you* is the creepy part. The fact hidden, undisclosed cameras exist is the creepy part, not what is done with the footage.

 

[DeluxAuto]

All humans have "real-time facial recognition capability."

Licence plate scanners are no different other than efficiency than an officer typing in your plate number.

None of this enhanced capability has anything to with privacy or "creepy."

The fact that you *have* to have a licence plate and that it is tied to *you* is the creepy part. The fact hidden, undisclosed cameras exist is the creepy part, not what is done with the footage.

Then why do they use it, ConMan?

 

[Conager]

All humans have "real-time facial recognition capability."

Licence plate scanners are no different
other than efficiency,
than an officer typing in your plate number.

None of this
enhanced capability
has anything to with privacy or is "creepy."

The fact that you *have* to have a licence plate and that it is tied to *you* is the creepy part. The fact hidden, undisclosed cameras exist is the creepy part, not what is done with the footage.

For the especially stupid, I have highlighted why they use these tool. Like all tools, they leverages human capabilities.

 

[ThePlumTiger66]

After Years Of Claiming It Doesn't Use Facial Recognition Software, The LAPD Admits It Has Used It 30,000 Times Since 2009

Since 2001, the Mayors of Los Angeles have been Democrats.

 

[Biggs_Darklighter]

One the one hand it's this.

On the other hand, the fact that the LAPD fucking LIED repeatedly is a whole different subject.

Since when do we allow our government to flat out lie to us and do nothing about it? Did we not learn ANYTHING about Susan Rice and "it was a video"?

The government lies to us every single day. All governments do. Even you aren't stupid enough to think they don't.

 

[Ziggins]

The same principle applies to many aspects of modern life. As a gadget becomes a common convenience, people forget how to do a task without the gadget.