Title
Calling on the Philadelphia Police Department, as well as state and federal law enforcement officials, to establish clear boundaries and issue transparent policies regarding the use of facial recognition technology to ensure that this technology does not lead to racial biases in policing practices and outcomes or infringe on individuals' civil liberties.
Body
WHEREAS, Advances in artificial-intelligence (AI) technology have yielded new tools capable of scanning individuals' faces, comparing them with databases of photos online in real-time, and providing accurate identification to law enforcement. The federal government and many cities and states have experimented with the use of these new law enforcement tools, raising concerns about their potential for civil liberties abuses and the entrenchment of problematic racial biases in law enforcement; and
WHEREAS, Philadelphia Police have confirmed reports of the Department's trial run of a controversial facial recognition software, Clearview AI, which is capable of using surveillance cameras to compare an individual's facial data to a database of billions of images the company mined from social media sites to provide law enforcement an accurate identification of anyone who passes in view of the camera. The Department has for years utilized another facial recognition software, JNET, which employs a more circumscribed database of pictures pulled from official sources such as drivers' license bureaus and state and county prison databases; and
WHEREAS, Law enforcement has employed facial recognition software to advance a variety of pressing public safety concerns, including the ongoing battle against the opioid epidemic. Noting the important role that PPD's JNET system played in securing the arrest of individuals involved in a major heroin and fentanyl distribution scheme, PPD Sgt. Andrew Callaghan claimed "this would not have happened without the magic of JNET"; and
WHEREAS, This automation of law enforcement ...
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