Facial recognition audit logs/usage statistics (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department)

Todd Feathers filed this request with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department of Charlotte, NC.
Multi Request Facial recognition audit logs/usage statistics
Est. Completion None
Status
No Responsive Documents

Communications

From: Todd Feathers


To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the North Carolina Public Records Law, I hereby request the following records:

1) Copies of all user guides, handbooks, technical manuals, or comparable documents in the department's possession regarding department employee use of facial recognition system(s). These systems are commonly provided by vendors including, but not limited to, NEC, Dataworks Plus, Clearview AI, Cognitec, and others. The entirety of this request should be construed to include facial recognition systems provided by commercial vendors or developed internally.

2) Copies of all audit logs for the department's facial recognition system from Jan. 1, 2020 until the date this request is processed. Facial recognition vendors commonly include daily, weekly, or monthly audit log capabilities in their products and the U.S. Department of Justice recommends that all law enforcement agencies maintain audit logs for facial recognition systems (see: https://it.ojp.gov/GIST/1204/Face-Recognition-Policy-Development-Template-For-Use-In-Criminal-Intelligence-and-Investigative-Activities).

3) All reports detailing aggregated usage/transaction statistics for the department's facial recognition system from May 1, 2020 until the date this request is processed. Commercial facial recognition systems include the ability to easily view these daily, weekly, or monthly aggregate reports, which often detail the number of queries per day, number of daily users, number of photographs/facial templates uploaded to the database, etc. If the department's facial recognition system provides options for the time period covered in the aggregate usage or transaction statistics, I ask that you provide daily reports (rather than hourly, weekly, monthly, etc.)

4) Any documents (this includes screenshots of program dashboards) detailing the number of photographs or facial templates included in the database linked to the department's facial recognition system as of the date this request is processed.

I ask that all fees be waived as I am a journalist (examples of my recent work can be found at toddfeathers.com) and I intend to use the requested records to publish articles in the public interest and not for any commercial purpose.

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.

Sincerely,

Todd Feathers

From: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department

Mr. Feathers,
Thank you for your Public Records Request regarding Facial Recognition use by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD). To add some context to the questions/answers, this tool was deployed on a pilot basis within the Violent Crimes Division for use in violent crime investigations when there was an image of a person of interest and all other leads had been exhausted to identify that person. There was no live scan feature. Violent Crimes were defined as murder, sexual assault, child exploitation, kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated assault, or any other crime where there is an imminent threat to the victim or the general public. A this time the CMPD does not have an active contract or working partnership with any Facial Recognition providers. Please see the below answers in blue to your questions. Let me know if you have follow up questions.

1) Copies of all user guides, handbooks, technical manuals, or comparable documents in the department's possession regarding department employee use of facial recognition system(s). These systems are commonly provided by vendors including, but not limited to, NEC, Dataworks Plus, Clearview AI, Cognitec, and others. The entirety of this request should be construed to include facial recognition systems provided by commercial vendors or developed internally.

The CMPD does not possess any user guides, handbooks, technical manuals or comparable documents regarding the use of facial recognition systems.

2) Copies of all audit logs for the department's facial recognition system from Jan. 1, 2020 until the date this request is processed. Facial recognition vendors commonly include daily, weekly, or monthly audit log capabilities in their products and the U.S. Department of Justice recommends that all law enforcement agencies maintain audit logs for facial recognition systems (see: https://it.ojp.gov/GIST/1204/Face-Recognition-Policy-Development-Template-For-Use-In-Criminal-Intelligence-and-Investigative-Activities).

All of the information included in the audit log contains identifiable information regarding specific cases which is part of the investigative file.

3) All reports detailing aggregated usage/transaction statistics for the department's facial recognition system from May 1, 2020 until the date this request is processed. Commercial facial recognition systems include the ability to easily view these daily, weekly, or monthly aggregate reports, which often detail the number of queries per day, number of daily users, number of photographs/facial templates uploaded to the database, etc. If the department's facial recognition system provides options for the time period covered in the aggregate usage or transaction statistics, I ask that you provide daily reports (rather than hourly, weekly, monthly, etc.)
There is no report detailing aggregated transaction data nor the statistics this request is asking for. There have been 33 logins to the system since May 1st. During these logins there was a total of 172 queries of the repository of approximately 78 discrete images (of the 78 images many were depictions of the same person). We do not upload images to the repository.

4) Any documents (this includes screenshots of program dashboards) detailing the number of photographs or facial templates included in the database linked to the department's facial recognition system as of the date this request is processed.
There is no document or screen which details the number of images in the image repository.

Lieutenant Stephen Fischbach
Office of the Chief-Public Affairs Office
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department

Files

There are no files associated with this request.