Police Feeding Celebrity Photos into Facial Recognition Software to Solve Crimes

Often unbeknownst to the public, law enforcement is identifying suspects based on “all manner of ‘probe photos,’ photos of unknown individuals submitted for search against a police or driver license database,” a study published on Thursday by the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology reported. When the pixelated surveillance footage produced zero hits on the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) facial recognition system, a detective swapped the image for one of actor Woody Harrelson, claiming the suspect resembled the movie star, in order to generate hits. Image: Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology

The NYPD also fed an image of a New York Knicks player (whose name was redacted in police documents provided to the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology) into its facial recognition system in order to find a Brooklyn man wanted for assault.

Source: www.vice.com