The Benefits and Risks of Facial Recognition Technology

Police departments around the country, including in New York, have increasingly embraced new technology to identify suspects and solve previously unsolvable crimes. Foremost among these new technologies is facial recognition, which can take an image from a photograph or video and use it to identify a person with startling accuracy. However, the technology is not without its detractors, and many people criticize the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement for both moral and practical reasons.

Facial recognition technology uses specialized computer software to extract a face of an unknown person from an image and compares it to other images of faces in a database. If the face is sufficiently similar to one in the database, it will register a match, confirming the identity of the unknown person. In theory, this can allow police to quickly identify perpetrators of a crime by using images taken from security footage or other sources, allowing crimes to be solved far more quickly.

In practice, however, facial recognition technology presents a number of problems. Obviously, it doesn’t work when a person’s face is covered, and it can be unreliable when attempting to compare faces with footage that’s low quality or that only has the unidentified face at an odd angle. Additionally, privacy advocates are concerned with how the technology might be used by law enforcement to track average citizens, even people who aren’t suspected of a crime. Despite these issues, however, police are looking to increase the use of the technology, in the hopes of tracking down more previously unknown suspects.

If you or someone you know has been arrested for a criminal offense, you will need legal counsel to help you preserve your rights and work to get the best possible outcome for your matter. A New York criminal defense lawyer, who is experienced in handling criminal cases of all sorts, can advise you of your legal rights and will fight for your best interests in court. If you or your loved one has been arrested, contact the Suffolk County criminal defense attorneys at McGuire, Peláez and Bennett at (631) 348-1702.