Facial recognition and issues of bias, deployments, discretion and regulation

What is normative formations of suspicion? (Reiner, 1992)

- surveillance routinely steered towards segments of the population dubbed 'police property'

Certain neighbourhood policing officers acquire what, through their ability to identify 'on sight' members of street gangs?

- cop cultural capital'

Early ethnographies of street policing showed what was not distributed equally or uniformly?

- police 'gaze'

What are the two types of suspicion in FR? (Matza, 1969)

- bureaucratic

- incidental

What is bureaucratic suspicion?

- police search strategies based on knowledge of individuals previously displaying forms of criminal behaviour similar to the incident under investigation

- rounding up the usual suspects

- suspicion based on socio-demographic characteristics

What is incidental suspicion?

- skilled investigator determines 'whodunit' by linking aspects of the incident to a suspect with the means, motive and opportunity to commit the offence

- favoured fictional idea of police work, not that common

What is reinvented 'bureaucratic suspicion'? (Fussey et al, 2021)

- watchlists are typically comprised of police-held custody images

- FR specifically targets police attention towards individuals already known to the authorities

What does PACE, 1984 say about recognition?

- recognition may constitute grounds for stop and search

What does FR take away from officers?

- takes the initial recognition 'work' away

What are scores in FR?

- considering system matches

- high score = more 'likely'

What role does FR play in suspicion?

- FR technology performs a framing and priming role in how suspicion is generated

What is discretion?

- how police interact with citizens when deciding whether to operationalise legal powers

What does previous research on discretion show about street officers? (Skolnick, 1966)

- officers on the street possess high decision-making power in terms of against whom, when, how and why criminal law is enforced

Policing delivery/discretion is influenced by what?

- officer judgements influenced by various factors such as the values and precepts of 'cop culture'

What issues can arise from police discretion?

- injustice and inconsistencies

How does police discretion influence FR technology?

- deploying live facial recognition and operator initiated facial recognition (LFR/OIFR)

- formulating watchlists

- where to set the score

How does FR technology influence discretionary decisions?

- adjudication (deciding if there's a correct match)

- initial recognition work is done by the system, then the officer exercises discretion to decide if it's a 'match'

- operator sees a list of possible matches

What is an issue with facial recognition?

- brings bureaucratic suspicion ('the usual suspects') to the fore

Why is bringing bureaucratic suspicion to the fore an issue?

- it has a tendency to frame persons of interest as different to others, regardless of any available evidence

How does bureaucratic suspicion influence 'gaze'?

- individuals listed on watchlists and databases are cast as warranting suspicion and the FR surveillant 'gaze' is specifically oriented towards them

What discretionary decisions does live facial recognition (LFR) make?

- decisions about where to deploy

- watchlists made up of 'mugshots' of people previously arrested

- who is in the 'space' (available population)

What discretionary decisions does retrospective facial recognition (RFR) make?

- not searching through images of the whole population, only the custody database (people already known to the police)

Discretion is most likely under certain circumstances, including? (Bowling et al, 2008)

- where there are no clear guidelines on criteria for decision-making

- where decisions depend on subjective judgements rather than/not in addition to objective criteria

- where there is considerable scope for individual discretion to be exercised

What is the overlap between FR and underlying biases?

- existing social biases of police activity: disproportionate focus on ethnic minorities

- alleged technological biases: lower accuracy for subjects who are older, female and of colour

- FR uses databases and watchlists that are curated by police who may be bias

What did the court highlight the presence of when using LFR?

- excessive discretion

What are the two "impermissibly wide areas" of discretion the court was concerned about?

- who becomes targeted for surveillance (included on a watchlist)

- where the technology is deployed

What guidance was set for LFR deployments to help regulate bias?

deployment should be informed by the force's policing requirements with all deployments being:

- targeted

- intelligence-led

- time-bound and geographically limited when set within the context of the relevant use case

How have the South Wales police made efforts to be transparent when deploying LFR?

- providing information pages and FAQs

- issuing notices before deploying

- publishing results from deployments

- social media updates