![]() “We don’t just give you access to it you have to have a need,” he told BuzzFeed News. Only a fraction of the LAPD’s force - 325 officers out of about 10,000 - are permitted to use the service, Frank said. LACRIS runs on a software called DataWorks Plus. “We are in the process of putting out a larger, formal policy as we speak.”Īs a department, the LAPD authorizes the use of a system that compares images of faces called the Los Angeles County Regional Identification System (LACRIS), which relies on more than 8,275,000 booking photos and mugshots and does not incorporate images from social media or the web. “Last week, when you brought to our attention that we had employees who used Clearview, we put out a notice directing employees that they can't use third-party software,” Horace Frank, an assistant chief with the LAPD, told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday. Ton-That also said that "over 2,400 police agencies" have used the company's facial recognition tool, and that each Clearview search is now “annotated with a case number and a crime type.” “The LAPD had a trial of Clearview AI as have many other law enforcement agencies around the country,” Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That told BuzzFeed News on Tuesday. They also refused to say whether the facial recognition software has led to arrests of any suspects. LAPD officials confirmed that investigators were using Clearview AI but declined to say which officers and which specific cases it was used for. “Clearview grabs photos from all over the place, and that, from a department standpoint, raises public trust concerns.” ![]() On some occasions, the officers “have hit it more than once, and that's not authorized,” he said. ![]() Following a BuzzFeed News inquiry, McMahon, who runs the department’s IT division determined that a small group of “investigators” had been using Clearview. The company also handed out access to political allies, Republican lawmakers, and entities in countries with questionable human rights records.įollowing BuzzFeed News’ reporting on the company and multiple lawsuits, Clearview AI has said it would no longer provide its tool to non–law enforcement entities.ĭocuments reviewed by BuzzFeed News showed that more than 25 LAPD employees ran nearly 475 searches with Clearview AI over a three-month period beginning at the end of 2019. In many cases, the company did not have paid relationships with these users, instead allowing them to use the software on a free trial basis.ĭocuments obtained by BuzzFeed News via public records requests showed that Clearview AI previously misrepresented how law enforcement used its software and once told police officers to " run wild" with the tool by testing it on friends and family members. “Department personnel shall not use third-party commercial facial recognition services or conduct facial recognition searches on behalf of outside agencies.”īuzzFeed News reported in March that people at more than 2,200 law enforcement departments, government agencies, and private companies across 27 countries have used Clearview AI. “It has come to the Department’s attention that a limited number of personnel have accessed commercial facial recognition systems (such as Clearview or other services) for Department business,” Deputy Police Chief John McMahon wrote in a departmentwide statement, noting that those systems use “non-criminal source images” in their databases. Officials with the department told BuzzFeed News that its proposed new policy will still permit the use of facial recognition but only through a Los Angeles County system that relies on suspect booking images.Ĭlearview AI is unique in that it scrapes images from social media and other websites and has built a database of billions of photos on which it’s trained its technology. Department officials have made conflicting statements in the past about their use of facial recognition technology, including claims that they deploy it sparingly. 13, after it was told that documents seen by BuzzFeed News showed more than 25 LAPD employees had performed nearly 475 searches using Clearview AI as of earlier this year. The LAPD, the third-largest police department in the United States, issued a moratorium on the use of third-party facial recognition software on Nov. The Los Angeles Police Department has banned the use of commercial facial recognition systems, following inquiries from BuzzFeed News about its officers’ use of a controversial software known as Clearview AI.
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