America is turning against facial-recognition software

Daniel Steeves, chief information officer for the Ottawa Police Service, says that a robbery-investigation unit spent six months testing a facial-recognition system. Many distinguish between the sort of facial-recognition software that Mr Steeves’s department used, which matches suspects to mugshots already in a police database, to the more widely feared version—used in China, for instance—that blankets cities with cameras that employ facial recognition and monitors citizens accused of no crime. Chris Fisher, executive director of strategic initiatives for the Seattle Police Department, recently oversaw the building of a data system linking previously siloed streams of information, such as emergency-call records, stops based on reasonable suspicion, and police use of force.

Source: www.economist.com