Law enforcement agencies use facial recognition technology (FRT) to assist in identifying unknown people—suspects, victims, witnesses, and others—captured on video or in photos. It has become a widespread investigative tool, despite issues with reliability and inconsistencies in how it is used by law enforcement. The below document explains the technology in more detail and walks through some potential arguments for attorneys challenging facial recognition evidence in their cases. If you are looking for more information, or assistance with FRT in a case, contact us at 4ac@nacdl.org. 

Facial recognition technology, an identification tool that is widely used by law enforcement, is also sometimes promoted as a tool to exonerate the innocent or otherwise support criminal defense. This advisory provides a brief overview of the issues arising from law enforcement use of facial recognition and identifies various concerns that defense attorneys should take into consideration before using facial recognition tools.

This redacted motion is a useful example for attorneys working to suppress evidence from a facial recognition identification. As an alternative to suppression, the motion also requests a reliability hearing. 

This document provides a brief explaination of facial recognition and a list of things to request in disovery on facial recognition. If you file a motion using this information, please reach out to Clare Garvie (cgarvie@nacdl.org) for tracking purposes. 

This redacted affidavit from Clare Garvie, the Center's Training and Resource Counsel, describes due process and brady concerns with law enforcement use of facial recognition. 

ACLU, ACLU Flordia, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology and Innocence Project's Amicus on the facial recognition in Willie Allen Lynch v. State of Flordia (2019). 

Important Appellate Decision: Defense Entitled to Face Recognition Information

Attached is the testimony of Clare Garvie, Fourth Amendment Center Training and Resource Counsel, for the U.S. Commission on Human Rights' hearing on Civil Rights Implications of the Federal Use of Facial Recognition Technology. Her testimony highlights how the use of facial recognition technology in the criminal legal system intersects with the Commission’s mandate to inform civil rights policy, enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws, and investigate discrimination in the administration of justice. 

State and local law enforcement agencies are employing dystopian technology like face recognition, drone cameras and predictive policing programs to investigate, charge and prosecute people. These powerful tools are criminalizing communities, often with little transparency of how they were acquired and how they are used. Learn how to uncover and confront these technologies at the state and local level.

NACDL's 19th Annual State Criminal Justice Network Conference
August 17-19, 2020 | Held Virtually

Subject matter experts and litigators from NACDL’s Fourth Amendment Center explain and discuss some of the important digital technology issues that defense counsel will very likely encounter in these cases. The faculty focus on reverse searches, facial recognition, and device searches.

Police departments across the country are starting to use facial recognition technology to identify suspects, and body camera manufacturers are working to incorporate the technology into their products. This emerging technology has many flaws, which render its results unreliable. Defenders need to understand the technology and its limitations, be aware of how it is being deployed, and know how to challenge its use in their cases.

NACDL comments to the Executive Office of the President Office of Science and Technology Policy responding to a request for information regarding the use of biometric technology.

Below are NACDL's comments on Executive Order 14074 on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety. The policing technologies at issue in the Executive Order create serious harms for individual criminal defendants, their lawyers, and the criminal legal system more broadly. In this comment, NACDL aims to highlight the serious dangers that these technologies pose and propose recommendations for mitigating those dangers.

With an increasing number of police departments across the country turning to unregulated, untested, and flawed facial recognition technology to identify suspects, it is vital defenders understand the technology, its limitations, and how to challenge its use in their cases.

Police officers often rely on facial recognition searches as the primary piece of evidence tying a defendant to a crime, and thus defendants should be permitted to challenge the facial recognition search process. The limited case law on the discoverability, reliability, or admissibility of facial recognition is inconsistent at best. Based on the risk of misidentification, Clare Garvie suggests several steps defense counsel should consider pursuing in facial recognition cases.