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NYPD Unveils <em>CSI</em>-Esque Facial Recognition Unit
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 5, 2011
Modified Feb 5, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 5, 2011
Modified Feb 5, 2011
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The NYPD is starting to catch up with CSI: they announced yesterday that they have started incorporating a new facial recognition unit into the department, which will use digital technology to match video images of people at crime scenes to mug shots on file. It promises to be their biggest technological advancement since they discovered the Segway.
The unit will run out of the NYPD's Real Time Crime Center; in addition to the "faceprinting," they will include license plate readers and a network of surveillance cameras, which are already being created between Canal St. and Battery Park, and river to river from 34th to 59th Sts. Shayana Kadidal, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, thinks the technology is too unproven: "These images are dumped into these big databases and used in a very unreliable way. It would result in a lot more false positives, and a lot more people would become suspects."
But the News notes an even more exciting crime technology the NYPD is developing: "footwear database" that will store images of footprints found at crime scenes. And just like that, we are inching closer and closer to the day when we shall all get toeprints.
Tagged
cops
csi
faceprinting
facial recognition
footwear database
nypd
toeprints
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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