Investigators in the Dallas Police Department will begin using facial recognition technology to catch crime suspects.
The police chief told a group of council members Monday that he waited years to see how the program worked in other departments.
Their goal is to use a somewhat controversial program. ClearView AI scrapes the internet for billions of images, including those on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. It then uses artificial intelligence to identify people the police are looking for.
Police Chief Eddie Garcia told the committee he plans to launch the program in six months and has already used it in individual cases. He points to a case, which helps investigators track down a suspected child pornographer. They identified the man when he was captured in the background of a trade show photo.
NBC 6 in South Florida covered the city's ClearView AI rollout. During a protest that turned violent in 2020, police used the program to find and arrest a 25-year-old woman they saw on camera throwing rocks at police.
“We've used technology to identify violent protesters who have attacked police officers, who have damaged police property, who have set property on fire,” Assistant Chief Armando Aguilar said at the time.
“I think this is going to be a game changer,” said Dallas Police Chief Garcia.
Garcia said his department is waiting to see other cities' issues with the technology, saying Dallas will have a “stronger” policy. They will not allow the police to go on fishing expeditions. The department's policy would require investigators to search for specific suspects accused of specific crimes, which would be reviewed by a supervisor at the city's Real-Time Crime Center.
“I've always had a lot of concerns about privacy, whether it's data or other things. It feels very comfortable to me. It feels like efficiency and just the next step,” City Councilwoman Kara Mendelsohn. said to Dice.
Major Stephen Williams said it would help officers catch suspects at large crowds such as sporting events and concerts.
“Those large-scale events create additional images in the solution. We get more publicity and attention from public events when people post images that help the individual process of how we identify individual people in places. We do,” Williams said.
The department will pay for the program with grant money outside of the city budget. For context, the City of Miami contracted with ClearView AI in 2020 for $12,000.