Inside Utah's facial recognition system: How police use the technology
A report examines how law enforcement in Utah deploys facial recognition technology, detailing the practical ways police use the system in investigations. The reporting offers a closer look at the operational reality of facial recognition in a state that has broadly equipped agencies with the tool.
Why this matters: Most people have no idea their face is already in a searchable database that police can query without a warrant, a court order, or even strong suspicion. Utah is not an outlier — it is a preview. Facial recognition lets officers run a photo against millions of records in seconds, and the error rates are not evenly distributed. Misidentifications fall harder on people with darker skin. The real issue is not whether police find the technology useful. It is that residents never agreed to this, and most states have no meaningful rules about when it can be used, how matches are verified, or what happens when it gets someone wrong.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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