LAPD doesn't fully track its use of facial recognition, report finds

Two years after Los Angeles police leaders set tougher limits on the use of facial recognition technology, a follow-up report found the department lacks a way to track its outcomes or effectiveness. The report, by the LAPD inspector general's office, found that LAPD personnel used facial recognition software in an effort to identify criminal suspects nearly 2,000 times last year. Of those searches, about 55% resulted in a positive match -- meaning that an image of an unidentified suspect was matched through artificial intelligence to a mugshot or other photo of a known person, the report found. On Tuesday, Inspector General Mark Smith told the department's civilian oversight commissioners that the LAPD was largely in compliance with a 2021 policy that set out rules for when and how specially trained officers can use a facial recognition program maintained by the county Sheriff's Department. The county program runs images against a database of roughly 9 million mugshots of people who have been booked into the county's detention facilities -- a far less expansive pool than some third-party search platforms.