City Councilmember Corey O’Connor introduced a bill this week that would require Pittsburgh police to get council’s blessing before acquiring facial recognition or predictive policing technology.
The use of facial recognition tech — oft criticized for its threat to privacy — has largely been a backburnered issue during this summer of civil unrest over police brutality against Black Americans.
The controversy has resurfaced, though, after PublicSource reporter Juliette Rihl reported that city police used facial recognition to identify a suspect in a case related to recent protests. She found mention of local law enforcement using the tech on one of roughly 150 pages of charging documents she retrieved from municipal court over two days.
O’Connor learned of the tech’s use through the PublicSource story, prompting him to craft the bill.
As cities across the country debate the role of police and how residents can be surveilled, PublicSource is scrutinizing the issue here in Pittsburgh. Your support will help us continue to break these important stories and inform how decisions are made that impact our community.
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—Jeffrey Benzing, assistant editor
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