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Plan to use driver photos in lineups dropped (Foll
Josey1
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Plan to use driver photos in lineups dropped
By Andrew Wolfson
awolfson@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Jeff Vessels, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said, ''I am pleased that they have reconsidered, and I think the change is in the best privacy interests of the people of Kentucky.''
The Kentucky State Police and Transportation Cabinet have dropped a plan to include pictures of licensed drivers in photo lineups shown to crime victims and other witnesses.
The decision came after privacy advocates and some state lawmakers criticized the idea as an invasion of privacy in a story yesterday in The Courier-Journal.
''I am pleased that they have reconsidered, and I think the change is in the best privacy interests of the people of Kentucky,'' said Jeff Vessels, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.
Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, said the people of Kentucky ''are going to feel much better about this lack of government interference into their personal lives.''
Maj. Rob Miller, chief
information officer for the state police, said, ''We don't want to do something that the public is not comfortable with.''
Miller said he called the Transportation Cabinet yesterday and that Steve Coffey of the Division of Driver Licensing agreed with his decision to abort the plan.
The plan, which Miller said might have been in place by late fall, would have let troopers and detectives electronically search the Transportation Cabinet's growing file of digital driver's license photos for five people who look like the suspect. Those would be combined with the suspect's picture in a photo lineup shown to witnesses.
Miller said he decided it wasn't worth jeopardizing other proposed uses of face-recognition technology that could be used to investigate the growing crime of identity theft. The uses could include identifying people who have multiple driver's licenses in different names, and checking to make sure people are who their license says they are.
It also could be used to identify people who die and aren't carrying any identification, Miller said.
The plan to use driver's licenses to fill out photo lineups drew fire yesterday on talk radio shows in Louisville and Lexington. Several legislators denounced it as a misuse of state records originally collected for another purpose.
State police said the system would save time because investigators would no longer have to sift through old mug shots by hand. Miller also said that letting a computer pick the photos would eliminate charges of police bias -- that an officer intentionally or subconsciously selected photographs to make the suspect's picture stand out.
But privacy advocates and lawmakers said it raised the possibility that someone who has never been arrested could be mistakenly identified by a witness and be forced to come up with an alibi.
''Schoolteachers, ministers and judges who have never been in the system could find police knocking on their door in the middle of the night asking, 'Where were you six or nine weeks ago?' '' said Jay Lambert, a criminal defense lawyer in Louisville.
Miller and a state police spokes-woman, Lt. Lisa Rudzinski, said those fears were exaggerated because lineups are generally used only to see if a witness can pick out a suspect -- not to refocus an investigation on someone whose photo is mistakenly selected.
Even if the suspect is identified, Miller said, ''You never take an eyewitness account on its face without some corroboration.''
Kentucky would have been the first state to allow police to assemble photo lineups from digital driver's license pictures, the newspaper reported.
In Illinois and Colorado, driver-licensing agencies specifically bar the use of driver's licenses in lineups and allow their use only to identify drivers with multiple licenses or to allow police to search for a specific suspect.
Critics of the Kentucky system said it would have cast too wide a net by including all licensed drivers.
State Rep. Perry Clark, D-Louisville, said it is ''very good on their part to reconsider'' the proposal.
Legislators ''were terribly upset that that was the first time anybody has heard about this,'' he said.
Clark likened this issue to the situation last year when state police initiated their ''Click It or Ticket'' campaign and threatened to write tickets for people who weren't wearing seat belts, even if they hadn't violated another law. State law allows people to be cited for violating the seat-belt law only if they've been stopped for another violation.
Clark said those plans, which state police ultimately abandoned, hurt Gov. Paul Patton this year when he pushed legislation that would have made not wearing a seat belt a primary offense, meaning police could issue a ticket for not wearing a seat belt even if no other violation was found.
Not all lawmakers, however, were upset about police using driver's license photos. State Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said yesterday he didn't know much about the issue, but from what he had seen and heard, he didn't have a problem with the proposal.
''I don't see anything wrong with state police using those photos,'' he said. He added that getting a group of pictures of people who look similar is sometimes difficult, especially in rural counties.
Kentucky began issuing digital driver's licenses, which resemble credit cards, this year. By 2006, all 2.8 million of its licensed drivers should have them.
Experts on face-recognition software say that it may be used in the future to match a suspect whose face is captured on a bank or convenience store video with a licensed driver.
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/04/23/ke042302s192831.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Andrew Wolfson
awolfson@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Jeff Vessels, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said, ''I am pleased that they have reconsidered, and I think the change is in the best privacy interests of the people of Kentucky.''
The Kentucky State Police and Transportation Cabinet have dropped a plan to include pictures of licensed drivers in photo lineups shown to crime victims and other witnesses.
The decision came after privacy advocates and some state lawmakers criticized the idea as an invasion of privacy in a story yesterday in The Courier-Journal.
''I am pleased that they have reconsidered, and I think the change is in the best privacy interests of the people of Kentucky,'' said Jeff Vessels, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.
Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, said the people of Kentucky ''are going to feel much better about this lack of government interference into their personal lives.''
Maj. Rob Miller, chief
information officer for the state police, said, ''We don't want to do something that the public is not comfortable with.''
Miller said he called the Transportation Cabinet yesterday and that Steve Coffey of the Division of Driver Licensing agreed with his decision to abort the plan.
The plan, which Miller said might have been in place by late fall, would have let troopers and detectives electronically search the Transportation Cabinet's growing file of digital driver's license photos for five people who look like the suspect. Those would be combined with the suspect's picture in a photo lineup shown to witnesses.
Miller said he decided it wasn't worth jeopardizing other proposed uses of face-recognition technology that could be used to investigate the growing crime of identity theft. The uses could include identifying people who have multiple driver's licenses in different names, and checking to make sure people are who their license says they are.
It also could be used to identify people who die and aren't carrying any identification, Miller said.
The plan to use driver's licenses to fill out photo lineups drew fire yesterday on talk radio shows in Louisville and Lexington. Several legislators denounced it as a misuse of state records originally collected for another purpose.
State police said the system would save time because investigators would no longer have to sift through old mug shots by hand. Miller also said that letting a computer pick the photos would eliminate charges of police bias -- that an officer intentionally or subconsciously selected photographs to make the suspect's picture stand out.
But privacy advocates and lawmakers said it raised the possibility that someone who has never been arrested could be mistakenly identified by a witness and be forced to come up with an alibi.
''Schoolteachers, ministers and judges who have never been in the system could find police knocking on their door in the middle of the night asking, 'Where were you six or nine weeks ago?' '' said Jay Lambert, a criminal defense lawyer in Louisville.
Miller and a state police spokes-woman, Lt. Lisa Rudzinski, said those fears were exaggerated because lineups are generally used only to see if a witness can pick out a suspect -- not to refocus an investigation on someone whose photo is mistakenly selected.
Even if the suspect is identified, Miller said, ''You never take an eyewitness account on its face without some corroboration.''
Kentucky would have been the first state to allow police to assemble photo lineups from digital driver's license pictures, the newspaper reported.
In Illinois and Colorado, driver-licensing agencies specifically bar the use of driver's licenses in lineups and allow their use only to identify drivers with multiple licenses or to allow police to search for a specific suspect.
Critics of the Kentucky system said it would have cast too wide a net by including all licensed drivers.
State Rep. Perry Clark, D-Louisville, said it is ''very good on their part to reconsider'' the proposal.
Legislators ''were terribly upset that that was the first time anybody has heard about this,'' he said.
Clark likened this issue to the situation last year when state police initiated their ''Click It or Ticket'' campaign and threatened to write tickets for people who weren't wearing seat belts, even if they hadn't violated another law. State law allows people to be cited for violating the seat-belt law only if they've been stopped for another violation.
Clark said those plans, which state police ultimately abandoned, hurt Gov. Paul Patton this year when he pushed legislation that would have made not wearing a seat belt a primary offense, meaning police could issue a ticket for not wearing a seat belt even if no other violation was found.
Not all lawmakers, however, were upset about police using driver's license photos. State Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, said yesterday he didn't know much about the issue, but from what he had seen and heard, he didn't have a problem with the proposal.
''I don't see anything wrong with state police using those photos,'' he said. He added that getting a group of pictures of people who look similar is sometimes difficult, especially in rural counties.
Kentucky began issuing digital driver's licenses, which resemble credit cards, this year. By 2006, all 2.8 million of its licensed drivers should have them.
Experts on face-recognition software say that it may be used in the future to match a suspect whose face is captured on a bank or convenience store video with a licensed driver.
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2002/04/23/ke042302s192831.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878