Published: 4:30am, 19 Aug, 2019 Updated: 4:30am, 19 Aug, 2019
The Detroit police have been secretly using unreliable facial recognition technology to make arrests for the last two years in news that has sparked controversy. Critics in the majority-black city have pointed out identification issues that particularly affect people of colour and women. This combined with the 83% black population of the city makes the use of the technology especially worrying, according to Willie Burton, a member of the civilian Detroit Police Commission. The technology, that also makes it easier to track people’s movements, poses obvious questions about whether police are violating citizen privacy rights.