Victory! New Jersey Court Rules Police Must Give Defendant the Facial Recognition Algorithms Used to Identify Him

In a victory for transparency in police use of facial recognition, a New Jersey appellate court today ruled that state prosecutors—who charged a man for armed robbery after the technology showed he was a “possible match” for the suspect—must turn over to the defendant detailed information about the face scanning software used, including how it works, source code, and its error rate.

Calling facial recognition “a novel and untested technology,” the court in State of New Jersey v. Francisco Arteaga …