Almost two-thirds of U.S. adults support law enforcement agencies’ use of controversial facial recognition software, yet roughly half aren’t comfortable with the idea of either federal or state governments having access to photographs of them, according to a new Morning Consult survey.
The poll, conducted Aug. 24-26 among 2,201 adults, comes more than a month after an American Civil Liberties Union test of Amazon.com Inc.’s Rekognition, a facial recognition tool being used by law enforcement agencies in Oregon and Florida, incorrectly matched 28 lawmakers, many of whom are racial minorities, to people who have been arrested for a crime. (Amazon said the ACLU set the technology’s confidence threshold at 80 percent, rather than Amazon’s recommended 95 percent confidence level for law enforcement agencies, according to the New York Times.)
Forty-seven percent of all adults support the use of facial recognition software generally, while 23 percent oppose using the tool. While African-American opposition is relatively similar at 24 percent, opposition among Hispanics, at 33 percent, is 10 percentage points higher than that of all adults. The poll has a margin of error of 2 points.
Source: 64% of Adults OK With Law Enforcement’s Use of Facial Recognition Software | Morning Consult