Police used facial recognition to identify a Lafayette Square protester

In the aftermath of the Lafayette Square protests in June, police in Washington DC used facial recognition technology to identify a protestor who had allegedly punched an officer in the face. They found the man after feeding an image of him they found on Twitter through a previously undisclosed database called the National Capital Region Facial Recognition Investigative Leads System (NCRFRILS). This is the first time we're learning of this database, despite the fact it's been used in other cases related to human trafficking and bank robberies. According to The Washington Post, 14 local and federal agencies have used the system more than 12,000 times since 2019. It's part of a pilot program the Metropolitan Washington Council of Goverments has been operating since 2017.