Facial recognition tools shared by 'Massive, secretive network of police departments'

At Medium’s OneZero [@ozm], new reporting based on “thousands of pages of previously undisclosed emails” confirms “the existence of a massive, secretive network of police departments working together to share controversial facial recognition tools.”

That’s not good.

And here’s what’s worse.

“Officers on the listserv are encouraged to adopt a Fight Club-style directive that precludes group members from discussing the existence of the list publicly,” writes Michael Hayes [@michaelhayes].

Excerpt:

The emails, which date back to at least 2016, also indicate that these departments explicitly tried to keep this cross-department partnership secret from the public. These emails were shared with OneZero from a source who obtained the documents through an open records request.

Many of these cross-department requests in Washington state were made through a previously undisclosed email listserv known as FITlist. FITlist — with FIT standing for “Fraud and Identity Theft” — includes officers from at least a dozen police departments, from large organizations like the Seattle police and Pierce County Sheriff’s Department to smaller ones like the Richland and Marysville police. Officers on the listserv are encouraged to adopt a Fight Club-style directive that precludes group members from discussing the existence of the list publicly. One document explicitly says: “Do not mention FITlist in your reports or search warrant affidavits.”

Shankar Narayan, Director of the Technology and Liberty Project for ACLU of Washington, says that the use of a listserv to make backroom requests “with no opportunity for the public to know and to understand” what information is being shared is concerning. Narayan adds that secret partnerships like these could also be used to circumvent jurisdictions that have banned facial recognition technology.

Washington Cops Are Taking a Cue From ‘Fight Club’ for a Secret Facial Recognition Group [onezero.medium.com via techmeme, photo: CBP FACIAL RECOGNITION.]

Here are a few screengrabs.

Correspondence between the Fircrest Police Department and Steve Wilkins of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department outlining facial recognition search request.