By James Pero For Dailymail.com
Published: 22:26 BST, 2 May 2019 | Updated: 00:33 BST, 3 May 2019
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In a previously undocumented use of facial recognition software, police in Washington state are using Amazon's 'Rekognition' to track down criminals with as little as an artist's sketch.
According to a report from The Washington Post, police in Washington County are able to compare pictures of suspects harvested from security cameras and eye-witness' cell phone pictures against databases containing 300,000 mugshots of known criminals.
In just Washington County Police Department alone, the report states more than 1,000 facial scans were logged last year which have helped identify subjects, sometimes leading officers to home arrests.
Amazon's facial recognition software is being used to process criminal sketches in an unprecedented deployment of the technology in law enforcement. File photo
While law enforcement say the software has been a critical tool in expediting investigations and tracking down otherwise elusive criminals, skeptics say the use of facial recognition opens up a proverbial Pandora's Box of mass surveillance that could lead to more false identifications.
In some cases, the report notes, police are taking the previously undocumented step of running sketches -- artist renderings based on eye-witness reports -- through the system in hopes of turning up a suspect.
This in particular has riled concern from experts who say that standards for using the technology have yet to catch up to the reality and breadth of its deployment.
When pictures are turned up by the software, they're accompanied with a percentage match that indicates just how confident the A.I. is that the input image is indeed the suspect.
Amazon has recommended that law enforcement should only act when Rekognition is 99 percent positive that the input picture is a match with a documented mug shot, but there are currently no official guidelines on whose or what data turned up by the computer can be used in an investigation.
