As governments build smart cities and businesses deploy commercial tools, the commercial potential of facial recognition is competing with civil liberty concerns and protections for individuals’ private information.

Teams of scholars at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tackling bias in facial recognition technology have two recommendations for its developers: more external oversight and more representative training data.

This spring, private biometric intelligence company BI2 Technologies entered into an agreement with a law enforcement faction known as the Southwestern Border Sheriff’s Coalition. The partnership promised that BI2 would donate and integrate biometric identification devices and systems into sheriff departments along the U.S. and Mexico border.

Tony Webster, a distinguished public records researcher in his home state of Minnesota and prolific writer covering topics such as privacy, public policy, and public records, has been in a fierce court battle with Hennepin County over a request he sent to the sheriff’s office about their facial recognition program. We got him on the phone to give us a recap of the events surrounding the case and to discuss transparency policy and how he sees the case.

In responding to our records request California Department of Justice (CADOJ) has provided documents detailing their acquisition of an expansive and highly advanced facial recognition system. The $1.7 million tech can preform thousands of searches an hour, and appears to be fully integrated with a massive array of police databases.