Hundreds of Police Departments Have Secretly Created Public Safety Watchlists

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12/21/18

To everyone who thinks secret watchlists are nothing more than a conspiracy theory, I give you law enforcement’s secret public safety watchlists.

 

The name of the company responsible for creating public safety watchlists should say it all but I digress.

 

A recent article in Xconomy reveals that law enforcement is using Suspect Technologies facial recognition software to create secret public safety watchlists.

 

Suspect Technologies is also working to pilot a real-time service next year by monitoring public surveillance video feeds with its facial recognition software and cross-referencing it all against a public safety watchlist, CEO Jacob Sniff says. He explained the plans but declined to identify the law enforcement client.

 

“We have an agency early adopter, his conception is he’s going to have 10 facial recognition cameras in town: one in the police station lobby, some at the Greyhound bus locations, city hall, even the public pool area,” Sniff says. “He’s going to be scanning people’s faces against a small public watchlist.”

Sniff claims that at least 200 hundred police departments are secretly using his software. Sniff said, “Suspect’s software is being used by a couple hundred law enforcement agencies” but declined to identify them.

 

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