The Los Angeles Police Commission has approved the use of facial recognition technology in a unanimous vote by members. The approval has come under fire by over sixty civil rights groups and public letters protesting the idea, with 931 out of 943 letters in opposition to using facial recognition within the LAPD.

In Los Angeles, the police department does not have its own facial recognition technology but instead will allow officers to utilize the LA County Regional Identification System (LACRIS). LACRIS compares images previously inputted by law enforcement officers and compares them to the nine million mugshots in the system.

In November 2020, the LAPD barred all employees from using a third-party facial recognition program since its department members were using commercial software Clearview AI without any approval. BuzzFeed reported the LAPD used the program over four-hundred times.

For years, numerous civil liberties organizations such as the ACLU and lawmakers plus other groups have protested the usage of facial recognition technology across the US, due to its potential for abusing the system and targeting communities and people of color.

In New Orleans, ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Alanah Odoms said, “Facial recognition technology is a dangerous and racially biased tool that invades people’s privacy and is ineffective at combating crime.”

In June 2020, As Black Lives Matter (BLM) grew across the US amid ongoing violence by police against black people, Amazon reacted and launched a one-year moratorium for any police departments to utilize Rekognition, its facial recognition technology. In a statement, Amazon said, "We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology.”

Municipalities, including Boston and San Francisco, have also banned facial recognition technology due to racial profiling and unlawful mass surveillance, as seen in BLM protests.

At the LA Police Commission’s meeting last week, Chief Michel Moore said he believes LACRIS is a program that “strikes a balance” between officers looking to solve crimes and protecting the civil rights of citizens. Moore cited data that show officers have solved murders due to the use of LACRIS.

The LAPD will not allow officers to use LACRIS to identify images from in-car cameras or body cameras worn by officers.

The LA Police Department is planning to use LACRIS solely for any credible threats to life, criminal investigations, and identifying anyone who is incapacitated. The LAPD stated only trained offers with approval to use the system will have access to LACRIS.

“The technology is nothing but a lead,” said the Director of LAPD’s office of constitutional policing and policy. “It does not and cannot provide probable cause.”

Before the unanimous ruling to allow LACRIS, organizations including BLM, the ACLU, and others had asked for the Police Commission to oppose oversight measures and launch an audit of the LAPD’s use of LACRIS.

In a joint letter to the commission called “Reject LAPD Face Recognition,” the organizations protested loudly. The statement, in part, said, “This September, the L.A. Times broke the news that LAPD “has used facial recognition software nearly 30,000 times since 2009,” with “hundreds of officers” running face searches of images from “surveillance cameras and other sources,” including photographs taken “during protests in the city this summer.” These revelations came after LAPD “consistently denied having records related to facial recognition, and at times denied using the technology at all.”

The commission disagreed and voted 4-0 to approve the new oversight policy.