The first District Court of Appeals in Florida is determining whether or not police are allowed to use facial recognition technology without the suspect knowing about it.

Police One reported, “The court battle, regarded by researchers as the first of its kind in the country to consider how the surveillance tool can be used in a criminal case, is being waged over a statewide biometric database of faces run out of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office — one that extends to anyone with a Florida driver’s license despite their criminal histories, or lack thereof.”

“Undercover detectives from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office accessed the system through an intermediary in September 2015 to generate a lead after hitting a dead end in their search for the perpetrator of a $50 crack buy. More than two years later, state prosecutors with the Florida Attorney General’s office are making novel arguments to defend the agency’s use of the controversial technology….

…The arguments are in response to Willie Allen Lynch’s appeal of his May 2016 conviction for the sale of cocaine. The appellate judges will consider the case on numerous grounds — chief among them: whether the state was required to turn over photos of other matches returned by the face-matching software, and whether the subsequent identification process met legal standards.”