Facial Recognition Technology in the State of New Jersey: Promoting Resident Privacy through Transparency and Regulation Within Law Enforcement, Grace Zhuang, UG '23 (3963609)
Facial recognition technology is a tool that is being used across the country by state and local law enforcement agencies. Within law enforcement, facial recognition technology can be used in cases of (1) post-event analysis, where evidence from crime scenes are searched with facial recognition algorithms, (2) surveillance, where programs are installed onto CCTV or body cameras to identify individuals in real-time, and (3) database persistence, where databases of individuals are maintained in order to run facial algorithms on. Facial recognition algorithms cannot be run without data points of comparison, hence the use of facial recognition databases. In the absence of federal regulations on facial recognition technology, it is up to the discretion of states to regulate its use. The ways in which states and municipal agencies operate their databases is not vastly different from the federal level. Some states have state-wide networks that are used across the state by different police departments. Other states may not have state-wide networks, but they have counties or large cities that have their own databases and systems. Some local departments do not use a state-wide network or a county database, but instead use commercial facial recognition software. In states that may not have any state-wide policy at all, some large cities within certain states may ban the use of facial recognition technology within law enforcement. Information is also hard to find on the various state and local departments that use facial recognition technology in their investigations.