Legal Aid Society calls for investigation into NYPD’s use of facial recognition technology

The public defender group is calling for an investigation into the NYPD's use of facial recognition tech.

New York City’s largest group of public defenders is calling on the city to investigate the NYPD’s use of facial recognition technology, which it says has led to several false arrests.

In a letter sent this week, the Legal Aid Society asked the NYPD’s Office of the Inspector General, a division of the city’s Department of Investigation, to look into instances in which the police department has allegedly violated its own policies on how to use the technology.

The NYPD has employed facial recognition technology for years, despite protests from advocates and experts who question its reliability and its potential to lead to biased results and increased profiling. The Innocence Project cited six cases in which Black people were misidentified and falsely accused of crimes by facial recognition technology. Growing concerns over the technology’s usage led the City Council to pass new standards on how police should be using the technology.

The New York Times reported this week that the NYPD improperly used the technology to misidentify and later arrest a man for a crime he did not commit.

Legal Aid alleges there have been other instances in which the department violated its own policies by using facial recognition matches sourced from outside of its own database to identify suspects.

Diane Akerman, a staff attorney with Legal Aid’s digital forensics unit, said the NYPD “can not be trusted to use it in a way that does not harm” New Yorkers.

“I don’t think this is new – it’s just now we have very specific incidents to point to where the NYPD is not only ignoring its own protocols but they are actively harming people now,” she said. “It has gone beyond just that they are misusing the technology or that they are not following their own protocols. People are actually getting wrongfully arrested.”

The Legal Aid Society is also asking Jeanene Barrett, inspector general for the NYPD, to publish any findings from the investigation in its next annual audit, according to the letter.

Akerman said she's unsure when Barrett’s office will respond to the letter – but that she “does not think it will fall on deaf ears.”

NYPD officials said facial recognition technology is an "important tool" used in New York along with departments across the U.S., but is not used to establish probable cause or make an arrest. The department said its helped close multiple "high-profile, violent cases," but is never used as the sole cause for an arrest.

In a statement, the Department of Investigation said it received and is reviewing Legal Aid's letter.