Should Iowa sex offenders’ photos be part of a state database?
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Joseph Rosenkrantz, CEO of Face First, a facial recognition technology company, at the company's Camarillo, California, headquarters on November 2, 2012. On screen in background is a demonstration of their technology. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/MCT)
Each of the more than 5,600 registered sex offenders in Iowa could soon have their mug shots digitized and saved to a database that law enforcement officials could then match to everything from security camera images to Facebook photos with a few mouse clicks.
The Iowa Department of Public Safety is in the middle of a program to equip every Iowa sheriff’s department with an electronic signature pad, laptop computer and digital camera that can support the high-resolution data to feed through facial recognition software.
“Biometrics is really coming up to play a big part in law enforcement and investigations and things like that,” said Terry Cowman, special agent in charge of the state’s sex offender registry program. “What’s interesting about facial rec is it is kind of the future of where we’re at.”
He has about $110,000 to pay for the hardware through a federal grant. Now he’s seeking another $180,000 to pay for the software and training that would allow the state to digitize roughly 10,000 photos, but he won’t receive word on the grant until spring.
Still, the move to digitize and analyze faces of sex offenders has some concerned about what comes next. Do you think images of Iowa’s registered sex offenders should be part of a police database? Should the program be expanded to people convicted of other crimes?
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Yes they should be made readily available so people know to keep there kids away from these predators!
most child sex abuse is committed by a family member or trusted adult. This “boogie man” analogy has no basis in reality.
The Iowa sex offender laws have gone down the rabbit hole. The legislature has bought into the notion that any crime of “moral turpitude” shall forever be branded with not only the scarlet letter, but to be vilified publicly for life. Do we “register” people for convictions of violent crime? NO. I do believe that certain violent offenders with a propensity to re-offend need scrutiny but the current laws are insane and will go down in history as a giant mistake. Please put common sense back into Iowa law making. PLEASE
People who have their mugshots taken are not necessarily eventually convicted of a crime. I think that those who go on to be convicted deserve to have their images permanently archived in a law enforcement database. Those who are acquitted of the charges against them should have their booking photos destroyed.