[Facial Recognition and AI Tools in Criminal Justice – Building Accountability and Trust]
The Facial Recognition and AI tools in Criminal Justice – Building Accountability and Trust program helps to build systematic knowledge about the use of facial recognition tools by law enforcement agencies, bolster public trust, establish guidelines, provide training, and develop reform proposals. This program is led by Dr. Sandeep Gopalan and his research team at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
Research Background
There is a growing use of facial recognition and related AI technologies in the criminal justice system. Private companies are scraping images of individuals from the Internet and compiling massive databases of citizens which are then sold to police and other law enforcement agencies. Aside from the privacy implications of deploying facial recognition, there are concerns about racial injustice in the criminal justice context. Many analysts and scholars have documented that errors in identification are highly racially biased – individuals with darker skin tones, especially African-Americans, are more likely to be wrongly identified by facial recognition algorithms. This is especially concerning in Maryland – a state where minorities constitute about half of the population and where African-Americans constitute a substantial percentage of the population in major cities such as Baltimore. When this potential for error in identification is combined with historically biased practices in policing against African-American citizens, the net result is the exacerbation of rights violations and the potential for serious harm. Amidst an already low level of trust in the police amongst minority communities, the perceived racial bias in facial recognition and AI technologies being used in criminal justice is likely to further deteriorate confidence in law enforcement agencies with corrosive implications for the rule of law.
Mission of The Program
Our program aims to build systematic knowledge about the use of facial recognition tools by law enforcement agencies, bolster public trust, establish guidelines, provide training, and develop reform proposals. Our program is dedicated to fostering accountability, transparency, and community engagement within law enforcement agencies across our region.
