For facial recognition experts and privacy advocates, the East Bay detective’s request, while dystopian, was also entirely predictable. It emphasizes the ways that, without oversight, law enforcement is able to mix and match technologies in unintended ways, using untested algorithms to single out suspects based on unknowable criteria.
Don’t assume it wouldn’t be abused since the police have a shit track record. If anything like this we’re to be used then strict laws restricting how it can be used need to come first since the police are dumb and can’t be trusted to invent new applications of technology. They’re the last group that would be leading this.