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As the Milwaukee Police Department moves to expand its use of facial recognition technology, a June report from the federal government finds this technology continues to disproportionately misidentify people of color. 

Elected officials and civil rights groups have been raising this concern as a clear reason why MPD’s plan should be paused or rejected entirely.  

MPD says there are ways to address this limitation. 

The Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission on Wednesday, June 18, will hold a public meeting to assess potential discrimination-related risks. 

The report

In 2019, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology released a major report evaluating how demographics affect outcomes in facial recognition systems. 

The report found skin color and ethnicity often had an effect. 

With domestic law enforcement images, for example, the system most often led to false positives – when someone is incorrectly identified – for American Indians. Rates were also elevated for African American and Asian populations. 

On June 2, the agency issued a report showing that facial recognition systems were more likely to mistake people from predominantly darker-skinned regions for someone else. This included people from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean, compared with people from Europe and Central Asia. 

Higher rates of misidentifications for people of color raise concerns that facial recognition could lead to more wrongful stops and arrests by police.  

MPD’s plan

MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough, speaking during an April meeting of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, said the department has used facial recognition technology in the past in coordination with other police departments. 

She stressed its crime-fighting benefits. 

“Facial recognition technology is a valuable tool in solving crimes and increasing public safety,” Hough said. 

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson supports the use of this technology for the same reason, Jeff Fleming, spokesperson for the mayor’s office, wrote in an email.

“Identifying, apprehending and bringing to justice criminals in our city does reduce crime,” Fleming wrote. 

During the commission meeting, Paul Lau, who oversees MPD’s criminal investigations bureau, said the department is considering an official agreement with a company called Biometrica. 

“We anticipate this usually being used by our detective bureau in the investigation of major violent felonies,” Lau said.   

Community response

Emilio De Torre, executive director of Milwaukee Turners, cited some of the 2019 federal findings in an op-ed, arguing that “entrusting facial recognition to routine policing is not public safety; it is an avoidable risk that history shows will fall hardest on Black Milwaukeeans.” 

Milwaukee Turners is one of 19 organizations that sent a letter to the Milwaukee Common Council expressing concerns about surveillance technology. The letter urges the council to adopt an ordinance ensuring community participation in deciding if and how it is used.

Some members of the Common Council have come out in strong opposition to MPD’s plan as well. 

“It’s both embarrassing and dangerous for false positives to occur at such a high rate,” Alderman José G. Pérez, Common Council president, told NNS. 

Such flaws would likely lead to due process violations, he said. 

Addressing flaws

Hough said MPD knows there are people in the community who are “very leery” of police using this technology, adding that their “concerns about civil liberties are important.” 

“I want to make it very clear: Facial recognition on its own is never enough. It requires human analysis and additional investigation.”

MPD is committed to a “thoughtful, intentional and mindful” policy that considers community input, Hough said. 

Lau said MPD will look into racial bias training provided by Biometrica, and people using the technology will need to have training on best practices. 

Biometrica directly addresses concerns about racial disparities on its website.  

The company says errors identified in 2019 stemmed from several flaws that can be countered with, for example, anti-bias training for analysts who review facial recognition alerts.  

Who gets to decide?

Since Wisconsin Act 12, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman is free to develop any official policy he chooses. The Common Council has the only formal check that exists.

By a two-thirds vote – or 10 of Milwaukee’s 15 aldermen – the council can block or modify MPD policies. But it must wait for a policy to be officially implemented. 

The state Legislature could pass a statewide ban or restrictions, and the Common Council could adopt an ordinance regulating or banning its use.

Alderman Alex Brower told NNS he will be doing everything in his power, as a member of the Common Council, to oppose MPD’s acquisition of facial recognition technology. 

What residents can do

People will have an opportunity to share their opinions about MPD’s plan – for and against – at an upcoming meeting of the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission.

Commission members will use testimony about facial recognition to help determine the discrimination-related risks it may pose, said Tony Snell, chair of the commission.

“We want to listen to as many people as possible,” Snell said. 

The commission can make recommendations to the Common Council, the mayor, MPD and the Fire and Police Commission. 

The commission meeting will be held at 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, at Milwaukee City Hall, 200 E. Wells St.

People may attend in person or virtually. 

Those who wish to speak must register by emailing ERC@milwaukee.gov. Each speaker will have up to three minutes. People can also send written testimony to this email address so it can be included in the public record. 

Milwaukee police push for more facial recognition technology as federal report shows persistent bias is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Striking nurses picket outside UnityPoint-Health Meriter hospital Wednesday. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Nurses at Meriter hospital in Madison and the hospital’s management team are returning to the bargaining table Thursday, the third day of a five-day strike over a new labor agreement covering nearly 1,000 union-represented nurses.

The nurses, represented by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin, went on strike Tuesday after their last negotiating session with UnityPoint Health-Meriter on May 19 ended without an agreement.

As nurses rallied and picketed in front of the hospital Wednesday, the issue of staffing requirements was at the forefront of arguments offered by both the nurses and the hospital’s management.

“Let me be very clear, it is not unreasonable to want safe staffing guaranteed in our contracts,” said Carly Dickmann, a Meriter obstetrics, labor and delivery nurse.

“It is not unreasonable to want to feel safe at work and to have a voice in the procedures that impact us and our patients,” Dickmann continued. “It is not unreasonable to want fair compensation for our labor. It’s long past time for management to take us seriously. It’s time that Meriter listen to nurses and come to the table ready to make real, tangible changes to improve the hospital we love so dearly.”

A management position paper distributed Wednesday by the hospital’s communications department asserted that the hospital and the union both “agree that staffing levels are a critical component to safe patient care.”

The paper stated that the hospital’s approach to staffing assignments needed “to remain flexible” so it could move personnel in response to “patient needs and census changes.” It said the hospital would review “the staffing matrix” in four units the union identified as having problems, and that nurses and support staff in the affected units would be included in the process.

At the union’s picket line rally on Tuesday, bargaining team member Amber Anderson said the management proposal fell short.

“Meriter management refuses to put staffing solutions in our contract,” Anderson said, calling the management proposal “a vague promise to review staffing with no timelines, no accountability and no enforceable standards. That is not enough.”

The union has also focused on security and on wages. Union proposals have sought  increases particularly for nurses with the longest tenure, as well as metal detectors in certain areas.

The management paper said average wages would go up by $4.67 an hour over the life of the agreement under the hospital’s proposal, and that Meriter had plans to install weapons screening equipment in its emergency department this summer.

At Wednesday’s picket line rally, striking nurses heard messages of support from Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth).

Pocan recalled his visit to Meriter for three clogged arteries seven and a half years ago.

“And I got time to spend in the ICU and other rooms here at Meritor, and I received excellent health care,” Pocan said. “Not because of the comfort of the bed or the colors of the wall, not because of the profitability of the hospital, but because of the staff and the nurses at Meriter.”

Johnson came to Madison because he sees issues in the strike as important “not just for nurses in Madison, but really for nurses all across the state of Wisconsin,” he said in an interview. “When you stand with labor, it’s not just a sometime thing, it’s an all the time thing.”

Strikers also got support from union activists organizing at other area health care employers.

“The people who own the health care industry are running a race to the bottom, where executives try to lower quality of care, increase ratios as much as they possibly can get away with,” said Colin Gillis, who has been active in the effort begun more than five years ago to win union representation for nurses at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics in Madison.

“And when they do it here, at the hospital next door, they look at their nurses and they say, ‘Hey, they take six patients at night, so can you,” Gillis said. “Well, you and your nurses are here to say, ‘Heck, No!’”

Dr. Ira Segal, who has been among the employees at Group Health Cooperative in Madison organizing a union, said his coworkers see the Meriter nurses as allies.

“Together, we will persevere and we will shape a future where workers and patients come before profit, and where every voice is heard,” Segal said.

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