On September 26, 2022, more than 60 Pittsburgh residents met to protest Carnegie Mellon University’s plan to use facial recognition technology to aid campus police in criminal investigations. The #technology has been widely criticized for its margin of error when identifying people of color. As the ACLU stated in 2020, the protestors believe it unfairly targets minorities. 

If this sounds oddly familiar, there is a good reason: the city passed an ordinance in 2020 which banned the Pittsburgh #Police Department from using the same technology to identify criminals unless they received prior authorization from the City Council. Before this ordinance was in place, many people had expressed concern that using the computerized facial recognition was akin to spying on citizens and violating their right to privacy.

The group that organized the protest in September is concerned that CMU and the City of Pittsburgh are playing an “active part in amplifying mass surveillance, violence against marginal communities and endorsing tech-enabled family separation, apartheid, and gentrification.” CMU issued an update in July of 2022 stating that campus police are no longer considering using facial recognition technology in future investigations.

Even with this recent development, the issue remains steeped in controversy. Some people believe it is the City Council’s responsibility to provide oversight when and if police utilize facial recognition software. They argue that police could misuse the technology to infringe upon civil liberties by violating privacy and unfairly targeting minorities with a higher percentage of false positive matches.

Others oppose allowing the City Council to decide whether police can utilize facial recognition technology. They argue that citizens should not have authority over police investigations. While the technology could be misused in the wrong hands, they believe that police are best suited to regulating its use.

The issue up for debate: Should city councils have the authority to regulate how facial recognition software is used in police investigations?