Undercover cops secretly use smartphones, face recognition to spy on crowds

A Florida intelligence officer admitted that undercover police were mingling with the public, using their smartphones to take videos and photos to spy on “suspicious” citizens. Then the undetected cops could determine a person’s name by checking the image against a facial recognition database.

An undercover cop can often be spotted in a crowd due to wearing an earpiece or talking into a microphone hidden under his or her sleeve.

But by using smartphones and tablets loaded with specialized apps, these same undercover officers mingled with demonstrators, took photos and transmitted “real-time video of protesters as they moved about the streets.” Sgt. Dale Moushon, with the Intelligence Unit of the St. Petersburg Police Department, told the National Journal, “Everyone has a phone, so officers blend in easier.”

While citizens may be able to record the police, the majority of us don’t have handy access to facial recognition databases at our fingertips to verify a cop’s identity.

According to the ACLU, “We shouldn’t just accept that undercover police will infiltrate peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, photograph them, and use face recognition or other techniques to identity them. We must not come to accept the existence of a secret police in our society.”