Facial recognition software and marketing

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Texas Public Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

Records and materials related to the solicitation, acquisition, and use of face recognition technology and related software and services.

This software or services may be provided by Rekognition, Face++, and FaceFirst; this request is applicable to these and any other company providing facial recognition services under consideration or contract with this agency.

Materials responsive include but are not limited to:

• Agreements: contracts (including non-disclosure agreements), licensing agreements, nondisclosure agreements

• Bid records: Requests For Proposal (or equivalent calls for bids), sole source or limited source justification and approval documentation, documentation of selection, and other materials generated in the consideration and selection of the technology in question

• Company relations and communications: records related to meetings or follow-up actions with any vendors, companies, or other private entities marketing face recognition to this agency for immigration, intelligence, law enforcement, or other use.

• Financial records: purchase orders, invoices, and other memoranda and documentation.

• Marketing records: All marketing materials - unsolicited, requested, or otherwise - acquired from vendors of face recognition technology

• Policy records: any policy directives, guidance documents, memoranda, training materials, or similar records governing the use of face recognition technology for immigration, law enforcement, or other purposes.

• Training records: training material governing the use, sharing, or access to any related data related to or collected by the face recognition software/technology, including the legal standard that is required before using the technology

• Use and function records: Materials that describe the function of the software considered or in use by this agency, including emails, handouts, PowerPoint presentations, advertisements, or specification documents.

Please limit the search to records produced from January 1, 2017 – present. Please include in your search as responsive records: communications, memorandums, background papers, meeting minutes, email exchanges, or presentation materials. If your office has questions about this request, please feel free to direct them to the address associated with this request or call the MuckRock office at 617-299-1832.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Foo

1/9/2022

Re: Public Information Request, City's File #W003600-121321

Attn: City Secretary

Dear Sir or Madam:

Please accept this amended request addressing your city attorney's objections to the best of my ability. Consider the new record descriptions and exlusions as superceding the originals in their entirety.

For purposes of this Request, please apply the following definitions to these listed terms:

1. "Facial recognition" and "face recognition" mean the automated or semi automated process of comparing two or more images of faces to determine whether they represent the same individual, FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES

2. "Face template" means data corresponding to an image or images of an individual’s face that is unique to that face, for use in a face recognition system. Sometimes called a "face print" and hereinafter sometimes simply referred
to as a "print"

3. "Face recognition search" means an automated or semi-automated process whereby an image of a face or a face template (the "probe image") is compared against a
database of face images or face templates in order to attempt to identify the person
depicted in the probe image
FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT PURPOSES BY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS.

Please include in your response the following records, if they exist:

-All agreements, memoranda of agreement, memoranda of understanding, or similar records concerning or which reference "facial recognition" or facial recognition programs or services.

-Alll memos, memorandums, or documentation of the sharing of or being granting access to any face images or prints or which concern the sharing, searching of, or access to face recognition systems maintained by any federal, state, or local law enforcement agency.

-Records of meetings with companies about the purchase, piloting, or testing of face
recognition.

-All purchase orders, invoices, RFPs, licensing agreements, documentation of selection, sole
source or limited source justification and approval documentation, contracts (including non-disclosure agreements), and all other official memoranda and documentation concerning such software and services within the meaning defined above.

-Templates or forms for use in submitting images to any face recognition system (which meets the above definition of face recognition, of course) which may be known as “submission templates” or by another term.

-A record reflecting how many times your department has identified or attempted to identify a person in the custody of yours or another law enforcement agency following that person’s arrest or investigatory detention using Face recognition technology. This can be a simple spreadsheet with a row for each seizure type next to an integer for each total.

-Policy records: any policy directives, guidance documents, memoranda, training materials, or similar records governing the use of face recognition technology limited to that which meets the above definition.

-Training records: training material governing the use, sharing, or access to any related data related to or collected by the face recognition software/technology, including the legal standard that is required before using the technology (only if there already exists one as a written policy or other official document. Do not perform a legal analysis for me).

-Use and function records: Materials that describe the function of the facial recognition software considered or in use by this agency, including handouts, PowerPoint presentations, advertisements, or specification documents.

Specifically—just so we're crystal clear—I am NOT requesting, any of the following, to name a few:

• Any online service which may be available online & available to the general public such as those provided by Facebook.

• Materials related to automated temperature devices used for health screenings.

• Human face analysis done without machine assistance; i.e., with pure human labor, except that such excluded records need not be limited to analysis of physical photos and documents. Pure human analysis does not receive machine assistance for purposes of this request and should not be included in your response, even if conducted by law enforcement for law enforcement purposes merely because a face is viewed in an electronic format or is manually crossed referenced with raw digitally-stored information because such activity doesn't make use of software designed for such purposes & therefore fails to meet the definition of a face recognition search above.

• Security software or electronic protocols which for example unlock or otherwise grant or deny access to a device, network, or physical location upon matching the face of the person seeking said access to a face in a database of authorized users, such as when someone unlocks a facelock compatible Apple device.

* To reiterate: Any other record of alalysis of a face not conducted with the aid of facial recognition software in the colloquial sense, as explicitly defined at the top of this request is not a record I seek.

• In case I still haven't made myself clear: all other instances of scanning or analyzing of faces conducted by the City of Anna, its representatives or its employees, should not be construed as engaging in or using Facial Recognition for purposes of this request; i.e. if it's not conducted by licensed peace officers for law enforcement purposes as defined above, I don't want to know about it.

Thanks,
Foo

P.S.

My original request was an exact clone of the hundreds of requests made to obtain such records from every major jurisdiction in Texas plus countless others, so it came as quite a shock to see you took such issue with mine. This new iteration began with the exact language used by the ACLU in several federal lawsuits compelling responsiveness to requests for these very same documents using the very same language, which was certainly less vague than my original, admittedly. But I nevertheless elaborated greatly on it in a good faith attempt to satisfy your request for specificity under the assumption that you probably wouldn't have spent the time to write such a detailed letter in bad faith. Most jurisdictions just charge exorbitant fees, drag their feet, or simply ignore me when they want to stonewall. For reference, Linked below is the City of Plano's response to the request I copied verbatim as my original request, if you still feel at a loss for the type of records I seek or approximately how much work to bill me for. I realize you probably don't get a whole lot requests for this many records as a small town, but understand I'm not asking you to run a dragnet. Every document I'm requesting I want and I want for a reason. ​Hundreds of jurisdictions have managed it just fine. I trust that Anna will too.

​https://www.muckrock.com/foi/plano-2954/facial-recognition-software-and-marketing-february-2019-plano-police-department-69573/#comm-

Re: PIR to City of Anna W003600-121321

Mr. Overcash,

Thanks for your response. To answer your questions: Yes. Please exclude spam and junk, and other unsolicited advertisements, and exercise discretion in excluding substantially redundant materials by considering only the most recent in time, or most readily available, copy of each substantive record to be responsive to this request. The suggested keywords will be fine as well, assuming that they will only be used to search communication records. Official documents such as contracts, purchase orders, written policies, police records, etc., to be clear, should not be excluded on the basis of not matching any of those keywords.

Thanks again for your timely and helpful responses to this issue. Please let me know if there's anything else I can clarify.