Wichita Falls City Councilors have approved a police department request on Tuesday — to apply for a grant to purchase facial recognition software.
This is a Homeland Security Grant — totaling about $60,000 — funded through the governor’s office.
It will allow the police department to use images from videos and photos to compare to a data base to identify people who cannot or will not identify themselves — and also take photos at the scene to put in the data base.
The police chief said the data base of pictures is created from past incidents where people were arrested.
Specifically, some of the pictures could come from jail records, through the state department of criminal justice and other law enforcement departments.
“It’s emerging,” Chief Manuel Borrego said. “It’s what’s coming in law enforcement. So, that we can more so protect our citizens.”
Many civil rights organizations are fighting the spread of facial recognition technology, saying it can be inaccurate and disproportionally affects minorities — and few safeguards are in place to ensure it is not used indiscriminately.
For example, groups said when getting a new driver license photo, they could be searching your record.
Again, this is just an application for the grant to get this software.
(Information from TexomasHomepage.com)
