‘Let’s Set a Date’: Detroit PD Fires Back at Attack by Tlaib About Use of Facial Recognition Tech

Monica Sanchez | August 21, 2019
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The Detroit Police Department is not cowering down to a recent – and crude – attack by Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

Tlaib Tuesday morning tweeted at the Detroit PD, saying, “You should probably rethink this whole facial recognition bulls—,” along with an article featuring a call to ban the technology by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

Her hometown police department actually replied, inviting her to come visit their "Real Time Crime Center" to see how the technology works “to identify criminals involved in violent crimes.”

“Let’s set a date,” the department wrote.

Tlaib responded, “I’m in,” accepting the invitation, but not without already damning the department by citing allegedly “indisputable data that it’s flawed.”

“Residents are very concerned,” Tlaib wrote. “I can share what I’ve found during the visit.”

The Detroit PD “liked” her tweet.

As Fox News reports,

Back in June, the Michigan congresswoman called for a ban on the technology until the federal government did a better job of addressing it.

‘There just seems to be a lot of unanswered questions,’ she previously told Michigan Radio. ‘That to me is very much calling for a moratorium and back off in using this technology until we do something about it on the federal level.’

In July, the American Civil Liberties Union reported that when it tested Amazon's facial recognition technology, it identified almost 30 lawmakers as police suspects. The identified lawmakers were disproportionately people of color.

While the technology has raised concerns about false arrests, Detroit police chief James Craig has insisted his department only used it when they had an ‘articulable reasonable suspicion’ the suspect committed a crime.

As to a date for Rep. Tlaib’s Detroit PD tour, it hasn’t been set.

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