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Los Angeles police are asking for federal funding to expand facial-recognition systems to help them identify people, it was reported today. "It's like a mobile electronic mug book," Capt. Charles Beck of the Rampart Station told the Los Angeles Times. "It's not a silver bullet, but we wouldn't use it unless it helped us make arrests." Jose Hernandez, an alleged 18th Street gang member, is one of 19 people recently arrested by officers using the gadgets on the mean streets just west of downtown, The Times reported. Officers Mark Hubert and David Nick recently stopped two young men on a bicycle on Alvarado Street to check them out -- doubling is illegal -- and senior lead Officer Mike Wang used a handheld facial-recognition device on the one who was pedaling. Within seconds, the computerized device compared a digital image of the man to those in a database of more than 120 area gang members, and the computer concluded there was a 94 percent probability that he was Jose Hernandez, an gang member named in a civil injunction. Based on that information, the officers searched the young man and found some methamphetamine. Police arrested him, confirmed his identity as Hernandez and booked him on suspicion of violating the injunction by having an illegal drug. [more] and [more]

The technology is not reliable and innocent people could be arrested for crimes they did not commit if the computer mistakenly identifies someone who looks like a wanted suspect but isn't. [more]