Facial recognition requests, reports, and associated materials (California State Threat Assessment Center)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the California Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

- All requests for facial recognition searches and associated reports made by local, county, state, or federal law enforcement. This can be in the form of email requests to individuals or agency email accounts, as well as requests submitted through a standardized form or web portal. Please limit the scope of this portion of the request to January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020.

- Any reports (weekly, monthly, annual, or otherwise), presentations, spreadsheets, or memoranda relating to, or referencing, the volume or efficacy of facial recognition searches. If this does not formally exist, I request this portion of the request be filled by usage log files exported from the agency’s facial recognition databases. Please limit the scope of this portion of the request to January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2020.

- All training materials for the use of facial recognition technology.

- The privacy policy that governs this agencies’ use of facial recognition search tools. If there is no specific privacy policy for facial recognition, then I request any privacy policy for the use of biometric searches.

I am a member of the news media, and am requesting this information to disseminate it to the public. Transparent and ethical use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement is an important topic to the public, making this request newsworthy. The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

Given my standing as a journalist and the scope of this request, I request a fee waiver and expedited processing of my request.

Please notify me if any portion of this request needs to be clarified. 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 USB drive 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 calendar days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Dave Gershgorn