What is the legal and practical status of drones, facial recognition, fingerprinting, robots, and apps for crime-fighting?
What will be an ideal response?
State-legislated rules for, and restrictions over drones have become necessary given their proliferation. Politicians and citizens are very suspicious of such uses of drones by police. Some legislation limits police use of drones to prevent mass and/or suspicion-less surveillance. These laws prohibit the use of drones by law enforcement except under certain circumstances, such as: an authorized warrant; exigent circumstances; consent; search and rescue; assisting in a life-or-death emergency; state of emergency; reconstruction of crime scene.
Facial recognition software can identify 16,000 points on a person’s face and compare them with points in police booking or other photos at a rate of more than one million faces a second. However, there is concern over lack of police oversight, especially regarding privacy issues. This technology has the capacity to collect a lot of information on completely innocent people. Some agencies have decided not to adopt it, saying it crosses an ethical line.
The FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS, is the largest criminal fingerprint database in the world. A biometrics finger reader exists that allows end users the ability to simultaneously capture a fingerprint and finger vein pattern with a single scan and offers sophisticated liveness detection to prevent forgery and spoofing.
Police robots can be equipped with various tools, such as odor sensors, video capability (including night vision), cameras, ECDs, two-way communications devices, and plastic explosives – and can serve a variety of purposes, such as bomb removal and search and recovery (including submersible drones/robots). The use of robots for some tasks can be controversial, however, such as equipping them with explosive devices to neutralize targets.
Apps can be used for various crime fighting purposes, such as solving cold cases. Apps can be controversial however, including those that record police encounters and those that warn drivers when police are nearby (police could easily become targets – or robbers could use the app to see where police are (and are not)).
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