Cobb police to use facial recognition technology to identify criminals. Is your privacy at stake?

The Cobb County police department is using facial recognition technology to fight crime.

But there have been privacy concerns about the company that the department is under contract with.

Channel 2′s Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell spoke with Cobb County Chief of Police Stuart VanHoozer about concerns the public might have with the that technology.

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VanHoozer said the database of Clearview AI, the facial recognition company the county is using, will show any publicly available and legally obtained image.

“The vast majority of what we are going to use this for is when we have a still photograph of a suspect of a crime and we want to identify that individual. We will put that picture in the system. The system will give us results,” VanHoozer said. “This product does not see you when you leave your house and take your kids somewhere, as has been alleged. We cannot get your door bell images from your house. That’s not what this product does.”

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Every Cobb County police officer won’t have access to the program.

“We have it confined to a small group of people who specialize in this,” VanHoozer said.

The department has a comprehensive policy on how the technology will be used.

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“We’ve been making sure there are no constitutional violations, not just in my opinion, but in the court of law,” VanHoozer said.

According to VanHoozer, the department spent about two years looking into the company.

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