Document Type

Blog Post

Publication Date

3-21-2026

Abstract

It is very unlikely you have ever consented to a police lineup. Yet if you have a driver’s license or a social media account, you may already be in one. A new kind of digital lineup has emerged, one that never ends and requires neither your knowledge nor consent. Facial recognition technology (“FRT”)is a biometric identification method that creates a digital template of a person’s face using measurements such as the distance between the eyes, the width of the nose, the length of the jawline, and the shape of the cheekbones. Algorithms then compare that template either to a second image for verification or to a large database of known images to identify a potential match. Law enforcement agencies across the country use FRT to identify suspects, victims, and witnesses. Today, roughly half of all American adults are already included in a police facial recognition database.

This post was originally published on the Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights and Social Justice website on March 21, 2026. The original post can be accessed via the Archived Link button above.

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