The Perpetual Line-Up: How Facial Recognition Automates Injustice (Documentary)
The short version: World Files' documentary on facial recognition's biased track record is a reminder that ALPR networks like Flock's raise the same automation-of-bias risks.
Our Take
World Files' documentary digs into how facial recognition software, sold as a neutral crime-fighting tool, keeps reproducing the same racial and systemic biases that have always plagued policing — just faster, cheaper, and with a tech veneer of objectivity. It's worth watching, and it's worth sitting with the discomfort of how little accountability exists once these systems get deployed.
We cover license plate readers rather than face scanners, but the throughline is identical. Flock Safety and similar ALPR networks get marketed the same way: as dispassionate, error-free tools that only catch bad guys. In practice, they're mass surveillance infrastructure built with zero public input, prone to misreads, and handed to police departments with almost no independent auditing of who gets flagged, pulled over, or investigated because a machine said so. 'Automating injustice' isn't a hypothetical for plate readers either — it's the design.
Credit to World Files for laying out the human cost so clearly. If you want to see how this plays out with license plate cameras specifically, check our camera map to find what's watching your own neighborhood, and visit our take-action page if you want to push back on it locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of World Files, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.