Despite police department ban, facial recognition technology lingers in Milwaukee’s criminal justice system
Milwaukee's police department has banned the use of facial recognition technology, but the tool continues to surface elsewhere in the city's criminal justice system. The ban has not fully removed the technology from the process of investigating and prosecuting crime.
Why this matters: A ban that does not actually stop something is not really a ban. If facial recognition is still reaching Milwaukee's courts or prosecutors after the police department stepped away from it, the accountability gap is wide open. People accused of crimes may not know the technology was used against them. Defense attorneys may not know either. That is not a technical footnote. That is a due process problem. The question worth pressing here is exactly where in the system this tool is still showing up, and who decided that was acceptable.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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