Black lawmakers call for ban on police use of facial recognition technology

Two police vehicles with two officers in each car were surrounded and attacked by protesters while trying to direct the crowd away from a street during a protest. LANSING -- Black Democrats in the Michigan House called Wednesday for a ban on the use of facial recognition technology, saying it tends to misidentify people of color. The proposed ban is part of a package of police reform bills proposed by Detroit Democrats and the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus. It goes beyond police reform measures recently called for by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, both Democrats, and flies in the face of a recent pledge by another prominent Democrat, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, to continue using the technology as a crime-fighting tool. The state representatives called for the ban following a recent incident in which a Black Farmington Hills man was arrested by Detroit Police and held for about 30 hours after he was falsely identified in a retail theft case by facial recognition technology.