Facial recognition audit logs/usage statistics (Commonwealth Fusion Center)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, I hereby request the following records:

1) Copies of all user guides, handbooks, technical manuals, and training material (including videos) in your agency's possession regarding facial recognition system(s). These systems are commonly provided by vendors including, but not limited to, NEC, Dataworks Plus, Clearview AI, Cognitec, and others. The entirety of this request should be construed to include facial recognition systems provided by commercial vendors or developed internally.

2) Copies of all audit logs for your agency's facial recognition system(s) from Jan. 1, 2020 until the date this request is processed. Facial recognition vendors commonly include daily, weekly, or monthly audit log capabilities in their products and the U.S. Department of Justice recommends that all law enforcement agencies maintain audit logs for facial recognition systems (see: https://it.ojp.gov/GIST/1204/Face-Recognition-Policy-Development-Template-For-Use-In-Criminal-Intelligence-and-Investigative-Activities). If the department's facial recognition system provides options for the time period covered in the audit logs, I ask that you provide weekly reports (rather than daily, monthly, etc.)

3) All reports detailing aggregated usage/transaction statistics for the department's facial recognition system from May 1, 2020 until the date this request is processed. Commercial facial recognition systems include the ability to easily view these daily, weekly, or monthly aggregate reports, which often detail the number of queries per day, number of daily users, number of photographs/facial templates uploaded to the database, etc. If the department's facial recognition system provides options for the time period covered in the aggregate usage or transaction statistics, I ask that you provide daily reports (rather than hourly, weekly, monthly, etc.)

4) Any documents (this includes screenshots of program dashboards) detailing the number of photographs or facial templates included in the database linked to the department's facial recognition system as of the date this request is processed.

I ask that all fees be waived as I am a journalist (examples of my recent work can be found at toddfeathers.com) and I intend to use the requested records to publish articles in the public interest and not for any commercial purpose.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter.

I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Todd Feathers

Jason,

My apologies. The requests you received are part of a larger project. I've been using MuckRock's automated service to send the same request to law enforcement agencies and fusion centers around the country. I know the automated nature of the requests can often be annoying to folks like yourself on the receiving end (getting duplicate requests, as happened in this case), but it's the only feasible way to gather data from a broad range of agencies.

In this case, I hadn't realized the MA fusion center was operated by the state police and that your previous response applied to its operations as well. Please consider this request closed on my end, and thank you very much for the help.

Todd