Tag Archives: law enforcement

On Data Sharing, Flock, and Other Entities

Jim was at his desk when the phone call came in.

“Hey, Jim! This is Charlie!”

Jim hadn’t talked to Charlie in years.

“Hey, um, Jim, I understand that your agency has some license plate recognition capabilities.”

Jim confirmed this.

“Um, mind if I take a look at it?”

Jim asked what Charlie wanted to see.

“You know…stuff.”

If you boil down the controversies about Flock Safety, Clearview AI, and other investigative software packages, some of them come down to these data sharing issues.

Flock Safety may sign a contract with a particular local police department, the police department may use the software only for authorized purposes, and may ensure that department personnel are trained not to use the software to stalk ex-girlfriends and the like.

But in law enforcement, there’s a long-standing tradition of law enforcement agencies helping each other out.

“Interagency collaboration in law enforcement is the process of multiple agencies working together to share resources, coordinate responses, and improve public safety outcomes. From routine operations to large-scale emergencies, collaboration between agencies is essential for effective policing.”

As long as the two agencies have similar purposes, no problem.

But what if the second agency has different priorities than the first?

Let’s take an extreme example.

  • Agency 1 uses Flock Safety data ONLY to find people who run red lights or speed.
  • Agency 2 uses Flock Safety data to find people who are not running red lights, but are going to suspicious places and associating with suspicious people.
Running a red light and speeding.
Not running a red light or speeding.

Is this justified investigation, or overreaching surveillance?

And, more importantly, does Agency 1 agree with these uses?

Just thinking out loud…what if the Flock licenses with these agencies prohibited agencies from letting other agencies use the software? There’s even an economic justification for it: every agency that borrows the Flock account of the first agency is a potential loss of sales to Flock.

Wallets for Non-Human Identities?

Let me start this post by stating that I am human. Well, so far. I might be changing into a wildebeest.

Google Gemini.

But assuming that I remain human, I have multiple digital wallets—two of which support decentralized storage of my California driver’s license.

But the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) doesn’t just issue driver’s licenses. It also issues car registrations.

As does the Arizona Department of Transportation, which brings me to this Identity Week story.

“Arizona is among the first states in the country to transition beyond the digital driver licence (mDL) into full-fledged mobile vehicle documentation, officially updating its proprietary Arizona Wallet app. They have allowed residents to upload and store their official vehicle registration, title information, and insurance details directly onto their smartphones.”

But there’s a philosophical problem here.

  • As I’ve noted previously, title (and registration) are primarily associated with a non-person entity (the vehicle), not a person.
  • Yes, a person may hold the title to a vehicle. Or the title may be held by two people, in the case of spouses.
  • But the title belongs to the vehicle.
  • Yet the aforementioned Arizona Wallet app is held by people.

Shouldn’t a vehicle have its own wallet, and then grant access to elements in the wallet to one or more person wallets?

Google Gemini.

And how would the vehicle manage its own attributed-based access controls?

And what if the car gets mad at its human owner(s) for boring driving habits and not taking it to the car wash every week, and therefore decides to change its registered owner to someone else who is more exciting and car-loving?

Google Gemini.

I’ll admit that this is a flight of fancy, but it raises governance issues about maintaining non-human identities.

When is a Law Enforcement Camera a Surveillance Tool?

Here’s another instance where I take an old post and completely contradict it. Flying against the flock, as it were.

But before I launch into the topic of this post, I want to share a video that Daniel Solove originally shared. The video was originally created by Apple to emphasize the privacy features of its Safari browser. Just the Safari browser, not anything else like, say, where your car is.

The title of the video just coincidentally happens to be “Flock.”

And now for something completely different.

When is a Law Enforcement Camera a Law Enforcement Camera?

You may remember my March post “When is a Law Enforcement Camera a Law Enforcement Camera?” The post concluded as follows:

“Basically, Flock Safety is controversial, and some people are going to oppose ANYTHING they do. Even when Flock Safety technology protects people from dangerous drivers.

“My view is that if a camera is used by a law enforcement agency, and there is no law prohibiting the law enforcement agency from using a camera for a particular purpose, then the agency can use the camera. There appears to be no such law in Georgia, so I’m not bent out of shape over this.

“What are your thoughts? Is this a privacy violation?”

Comments, we get comments

I received a comment on the March post that felt my “particular purpose” comment ignored the fact that the cameras can be used for other purposes…and ARE being used for other purposes. Without a search warrant. Here are a few excerpts from the comment:

“Every single one of these cameras takes images of every vehicle passing by on public roadways, even ones that are not owned or driven by a suspected criminal or the vehicle itself being suspected of being involved any crime. From there the images are processed by AI software logging the vehicles description and license plate number, along with the location of every one of the cameras that captured the same vehicle passing by along with a date and time of each passing, then that data is logged into a searchable database that can be searched by law enforcement up to 30 days (less or more in some places) without needing a search warrant signed by a judge….They can just search for anyone’s vehicles data regardless if there’s probable cause or not to do so.

“Law enforcement require a warrant prior to putting a GPS on someone’s vehicle, they are required to get a warrant before getting a persons cell phone ping and gps data from a mobile phone service company, but these systems are trying to be a loophole and pass any warrant requirements but provide the same type of private data that the other techniques require a search warrant for.”

The only comment I’ll offer is that it’s wise to make a distinction between how the cameras should be used and how the cameras are potentially used. Assuming that a law enforcement officer can search the database without a warrant, I believe that the officer should have probable cause to do so. The officer should not use a Flock database to stalk a romantic interest.

“In March, for instance, an officer resigned from the Milwaukee Police Department after allegedly using the department’s network of ALPRs to track his romantic partner and one of the partner’s exes nearly 180 times over a two-month period. His misconduct surfaced only after his victims looked up their license plate numbers on HaveIBeenFlocked.com, which collects Flock audit data that some local governments have made publicly available. MPD subsequently revoked most officers’ access to the Flock database.”

And so I ask you, again. What are your thoughts? Is this a privacy violation?

And if you need help writing about privacy…

I know a guy.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

Dry To The Bone

You’re not gonna hear this song about dry fingerprint ridges on Top 40 radio. But for a select few biometric product marketers, it highlights a critically important issue.

“Dry To The Bone #1.” Google Lyria.

Why?

Because dry fingerprint ridges, while not a common worry among the general populace, ARE a concern among law enforcement, homeland security, financial institution, and other professionals who depend on high-quality friction ridge capture to solve crimes and identify people.

And these people desperately need products that accurately capture fingerprints in challenging conditions.

And the product vendors need to communicate their product benefits to potential vendors. (Whoops, I mean prospects.)

That’s where Bredemarket comes to save the day.

Not with music.

“Tracing the Ridge.” Google Lyria.

(Thankfully.)

Through Bredemarket, I work with you to develop the customer-focused, benefits-oriented words that move your prospects toward your fingerprint capture solution.

If you want prospects to buy your identity product, schedule a free meeting with the biometric product marketing expert.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers
Stop losing prospects!

And…I couldn’t resist one more.

“Dry To The Bone #2.” Google Lyria.

When Your “Hungry People”…Is You

I prefer the term “hungry people” to the term “target audience” because it conveys the idea of those who really really want your product.

The buffet.

And therefore it stands to reason that you want to write content for your hungry people.

For example, if you’re selling automated fingerprint identification systems to cops, your content should probably talk about protecting residents by identifying bad people and keeping them off the street.

But Isabel Sterne warns that you don’t want to go overboard in this.

Why not?

“When you spend your time scanning your environment, adapting to those around you, and adjusting your communication style accordingly, you can start to lose yourself, lose sight of your message, and become forgettable.”

Let’s face it. If everyone mirrors their target audience, and they have the same target audience, how can you tell them apart?

I hope that Scott Swann and Ajay Amlani forgive me, but I’m going to use them as examples.

  • Years ago Ajay, Scott, and I were associated with IDEMIA and/or MorphoTrak, but we have each gone our separate ways.
  • Ajay Amlani is now at Aware, a U.S.-based biometric company that sells to multiple audiences, including law enforcement.
  • Scott Swann is now at ROC (formerly Rank One Computing), a U.S.-based biometric company that sells to multiple audiences, including law enforcement.

Aware and ROC could simply mirror the needs and desires of U.S. law enforcement and mirror them back. But if they did that, Aware and ROC would appear identical and interchangeable.

And they’re not.

Aware has been around for several decades and offers everything from components and tools to full-blown automated biometric identification systems. Amlani, a new arrival, has a background that extends back to the FIRST version of CLEAR, along with multiple roles within the federal government and the private sector (including the aforementioned IDEMIA, where we did early work on venue identity verification solutions).

ROC is a newer arrival with a laser focus on several biometric modalities. Swann joined ROC after a long career at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal government entities, followed by time in the private sector with MorphoTrak (where we worked on Morpho Video Investigator together, a potential solution for Boston Marathon bombing events) and IDEMIA National Security Solutions.

What is Sterne’s advice for Amlani, Swann, and others who don’t want to simply reflect their prospects? Here is what Sterne does:

“I write about what I’m interested in, and while I do write for all of you (and hope you get some value from what I share), I mostly write for myself, to explore ideas. In other words, I forget about the room when I write….

“When you write for yourself without considering a person or group of people, you end up writing more personally and often more universally.

“The irony is that by writing for yourself, you usually create something that others can connect to more deeply….

“And the more you write from this place, the clearer you get on your voice, priorities, and overarching ideas, the better able you are to create something that resonates.”

Personally, my hope is that my infusion of myself in my writing helps me to stand out and to better communicate what Bredemarket can provide to identity/biometric firms.

Is it working? You be the judge.

My buddies and me are getting real well known.

NIST Implements Color Coding to Visually Identify High False Positive Facial Recognition Values

With the exception of colorblind people, the use of colors in dashboards makes information more accessible, particularly in populations where green means “good” and red means “bad.”

(Even if your name IS Bamber.)

The National Institute of Standards and Technology understands the importance of consistent colors, having worked on traffic light colors since the National Bureau of Standards days (PDF).

For more modern applications such as biometrics, NIST recently incorporated a color coding display change to one of its tabs for the “Face Recognition Technology Evaluation (FRTE) 1:N Identification” results. Specifically, the “Demographics: False Positive Dependence” tab.

The change, announced in an email, is as follows:

“The false positive identification error rate tables now include color-coding to highlight anomalously high values.”

In this context, “anomalously high” is bad, or red. (Actually dark pink, but close enough.)

But let’s explain WHY and HOW NIST made this change.

Why does NIST highlight demographic false positive dependence?

NIST has of course explored the demographic effects of face recognition for years, and the “Demographics: False Positive Dependence” tab provides additional tracking for this.

Why does NIST do this?

“False positives occur when searches return wrong identities. Such outcomes have application-dependent consequences, which can be serious.”

Serious as in arresting and jailing innocent people. I previously mentioned Robert Williams.

How does NIST highlight demographic false positive dependence?

Anyway, NIST created the “Demographics: False Positive Dependence” tab.

“The table shows false positive identification rates (FPIR), the fraction of searches that should not return gallery entries above a threshold, but do. The threshold is set for each algorithm to give a FPIR of 0.002 (1 in 500) or less on searches of women born in Eastern Europe.”

And for algorithms that have “anomalously high values” in other demographic populations, NIST has added the color coding.

“A cell is shaded by how much larger FPIR is than that: yellow if FPIR is 20 times larger; pink if FPIR is 40 times larger; and dark pink if FPIR is 80 times larger.”

What does the highlighting look like?

Let me illustrate this with the results from the three algorithms Omnigarde submitted.

Data captured April 8, 2026. Omnigarde.
  • Omnigarde’s first two algorithms, submitted in 2023 and 2024, exhibited high FPIR values for south Asian females, and the second algorithm also exhibited a high FPIR value for east Asian females. See the color coding.
  • The third algorithm, submitted in 2025, had lower FPIR values for these populations and thus no yellow color coding.

Even the less-stellar algorithms show improvement over time.

Data captured April 8, 2026. Anonymized (but you can figure it out if you’re curious).

Final thoughts

Both vendors and customers/prospects can rightfully question whether this is helpful or hurtful. I lean toward “helpful,” because if the facial recognition algorithm you use provides high false positives for certain popularions, you need to know.

And as always, law enforcement in the United States should NEVER solely rely on facial recognition results as the basis for an arrest…even for Eastern European females. They should ONLY be an investigative lead.

In the meantime, take care of yourself, and each other.

Jerry Springer. By Justin Hoch, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16673259.

When is a Law Enforcement Camera a Law Enforcement Camera?

Many years ago I was driving on Holt Boulevard in Montclair, California, preparing to make a left turn on Central. I followed the vehicle behind me and made my left turn…only then noticing that the left turn light was now red.

As the registered owner of the vehicle I was driving, I received an email from the city of Montclair a few days later. Because this is when Montclair was using cameras for traffic enforcement.

Off to traffic school.

Montclair doesn’t use traffic cameras any more, but all sorts of cameras are owned by, or accessible to, law enforcement agencies.

But how should they be used?

404 Media reported that the Georgia State Patrol accesses Flock cameras, for the intended purpose of gathering information for serious crimes. But what happens when the camera captures something not serious?

“Georgia State Patrol used its system of Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance cameras to issue a ticket to a motorcyclist who was allegedly looking at his cell phone while riding, according to a copy of the citation obtained by 404 Media….The incident happened December 26 in Coffee County, Georgia. The ticket lists the offense as ‘Holding/supporting wireless telecommunications device,’ and includes the note ‘CAPTURED ON FLOCK CAMERA 31 MM 1 HOLDING PHONE IN LEFT HAND.’”

The man went to court and the ticket was dropped, but 404 Media is still outraged that the ticket was issued in the first place. Not because of Georgia’s policies, but because of other policies.

“Many police departments go out of their way to tell community members that Flock cameras are not used for traffic enforcement. For example, the City of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, states in a FAQ that “GSPD [Glenwood Springs Police Department] does not use Flock cameras for traffic enforcement, parking enforcement, or minor code violations.” El Paso, Texas, tells residents “these are not traffic enforcement cameras. They do not issue tickets, do not monitor speed, and do not generate revenue. They are investigative tools used after crimes occur.” Lynwood, Washington tells residents “these cameras will not be used for traffic infractions, immigration enforcement, or monitoring First Amendment-protected expressive activity” (Flock cameras have now been used for all of these purposes, as we have reported.)”

You will recall that I addressed another Flock Safety case, in which a citizen made public records requests from two Washington state jurisdictions. The jurisdictions said that they didn’t have the data; Flock Safety did. Flock Safety said that it had deleted the data.

Basically, Flock Safety is controversial, and some people are going to oppose ANYTHING they do. Even when Flock Safety technology protects people from dangerous drivers.

My view is that if a camera is used by a law enforcement agency, and there is no law prohibiting the law enforcement agency from using a camera for a particular purpose, then the agency can use the camera. There appears to be no such law in Georgia, so I’m not bent out of shape over this.

What are your thoughts? Is this a privacy violation?

Vertical Taxonomies: the UK Home Office Data Standards

I’ve talked about taxonomies ad nauseum, but they apply in multiple cases, including how police agencies talk to each other.

The United Kingdom’s Home Office has published the National Police Chiefs’ Council Minimum POLE Data Standards Dictionary. As the capitalization, I mean capitalisation, suggests, POLE is an acronym standing for Person, Object, Location, Event. The dictionary provides a common method for police agencies to talk to each other about…well, about people, objects, locations, and events.

Some of the comments in the dictionary seem unnecessary, but I guess it’s better to be too specific than not specific at all. Example:

If a telephone number is unknown – do not make one up.

In truth, this ties to a related notation:

A blank field is preferable to a known error…

Because, as anyone who has ever been a teenager will know, things that happen can be added to your permanent record.

Speaking of which, PERSON records may include offenders, suspects, victims, witnesses, and multiple other living, dead, or not-yet-born parties.

Very few specific OBJECT types are called out, but those that do include vehicles, land, and buildings. The OBJECT types also include identifying numbers such as passport numbers and telephone numbers.

A LOCATION may be an address, a geolocation, or another location designator. Or “no fixed abode.”

An EVENT may be a crime, an incident, a “custody,” a stop search, a safeguarding, and a case of “anti-social behaviour.”

Google Gemini.

So if a Welsh police officer runs into a person trashing a vehicle a a particular geolocation, the officer has all the tools to record what has happened and what will happen.

Montana Fingerprinting Laws…and Costs

School volunteers aren’t free…especially when they need background checks.

Montana Public Radio explains that the state imposed new fingerprint-based background checks for school volunteers. 

At $30 a pop, the costs add up. Missoula is spending an additional $20,000 a month to fund this.

Bozeman isn’t paying for this. It’s making the volunteers pay.

Helena was already fingerprinting volunteers and therefore isn’t incurring any additional costs.