Detroit police give 7 Action News a look at how they're using facial recognition technology
The short version: Detroit police let a local news crew film their facial recognition workflow, but a friendly demo doesn't erase the tech's track record of misidentifying Black residents and fueling wrongful arrests.
Our Take
Credit to WXYZ-TV Channel 7 for getting cameras inside Detroit PD's facial recognition operation — access like that is rare, and it's worth watching. But a guided tour designed for a news segment isn't an audit. It shows analysts clicking through software under ideal conditions, not the messy, high-pressure real-world lineups that have already led to multiple wrongful arrests of Detroit residents in recent years, cases that made national headlines and cost the city settlement money.
Facial recognition doesn't operate in a vacuum. It's typically paired with the same license plate reader networks we track every day — Flock Safety cameras and similar systems that log where you drive, whether you're suspected of anything or not. Once a face or a plate flags a 'match,' human officers often treat probabilistic software output as certainty, and the burden falls on innocent people to prove the algorithm wrong. Detroit has already lived that story.
A police department showing off its tools on the local news is not the same as independent oversight, public audit logs, or enforceable limits on how long data is kept and who can access it. If you want to see what's actually watching your streets, check our camera map, and if you want to push back on unchecked surveillance in your own city, our take-action guide is a good place to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.