MSgt. Gary Knight is an assistant public information officer for the Oklahoma City Police Department. His job includes using the department’s social media accounts to help solve crimes.
“Say we have a shooting. They’ll bring a picture of a suspect to me, I put it on our social media and we hope to get somebody to call us and say, ‘Hey, I know who that is,’ But sometimes, we don’t get them identified. Or sometimes, we get wrong information on who they are,” he said.
That’s one of the reasons why OKCPD requested the sole source purchase of American facial recognition company Clearview AI’s software. Knight said the technology’s potential uses go beyond identifying criminal suspects and include identifying missing persons and homicide victims. But as to its use for identifying possible suspects, he said it’s important to note the software is just a tool for investigators.
“If they get something from Clearview that helps them identify a person, that is not probable cause for arrest. It is a tip or a lead. A lead only," said Knight. "They cannot just go out and make an arrest based on the information that Clearview gives them. They must follow up on that and try to verify that, yes, indeed, this is the person we're looking for,” he said.
The Oklahoma City Council approved the contract last month, but not without disagreement. JoBeth Hamon was one of two council members who voted against the approval. She cited concerns with the technology’s lack of regulation and uncertainty over Clearview AI’s intentions.
“My broader concern with AI in general being such a new technology and emerging technology is that these companies don't have a lot of regulation. Like, the technology itself doesn't have a lot of regulation," Hamon said. "And the regulation is so state by state and spotty. Even if the police department says that their motive is solving crime and reducing crime, that's not necessarily the motive of these companies. Their motive is profit,” she said.
Earlier this year, Clearview AI was involved in a nationwide class-action settlement stemming from allegations the company scraped billions of facial images from the internet and sold that information without consent.
Republican State Representative Tom Gann, who led an interim study looking into the legality of the use of automated license plate readers last October, said other lawsuits from around the country regarding privacy violations and the use of AI technology are still being litigated.
“Until we know where the courts are gonna land on that, we need to wait and see what's gonna happen so that we'll know how to formulate our policy on a state level," Gann said. "And it's just kind of hard to get law enforcement and others to slow down a minute in order to consider these things."
Another concern cited by Hamon relates to recent ICE deportation efforts in Oklahoma. The federal agency also uses Clearview AI’s facial comparison technology, and Hamon said photos shared with Clearview AI by OKCPD could in turn be used by ICE to deport undocumented immigrants living in Oklahoma.
“Now we're potentially feeding information into a system that that federal agency is utilizing," Hamon said. "And so, we're just making our residents more vulnerable while we're telling them to trust us. We're not walking the walk, if you will,” she said.
While Hamon foresees potential privacy concerns for specific groups of Oklahoma City residents, Gann has concerns about privacy on a larger scale.
“We're seeing this technology just advance so quickly and so pervasively that it's really gonna be a debate from here on out, I think. I don't think we're gonna be able to solve it with one piece of legislation as this technology continues to invade our personhood and our society,” Gann said.
Knight said the police department will not roll out the use of Clearview AI until they have policies in place for how to use it.
“We're in the process of writing policies for it now. They're just about to finish that and let the city attorneys put their final touches on it. And once that's in place, then we can. Take the next step moving toward the use of Clearview,” Knight said.
Representative Gann will lead another interim study on the use of automated license plate readers in October.
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