Sheriff Ball Changes Course on Facial Recognition

Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office vehicle in Sherman Park. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball announced Friday she would no longer pursue facial recognition technology for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).

“After a thoughtful evaluation and meaningful dialogue with community stakeholders and leaders, I have decided that the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) will not move forward with facial recognition technology at this time,” Ball said in a statement. “While we recognize the potential of this software as an investigative tool, we also recognize that trust between the MCSO and the people we serve is important.”

On Feb. 16, Ball revealed she had signed an agreement of intent with a firm called Biometrica, which provides access to facial recognition services to law enforcement agencies. The admission, made at a meeting of her community advisory board, came just days after the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) changed course on the technology, announced it would pause use of the technology.

Ball’s decision to explore facial recognition technology in 2025, and sign an agreement of intent, was met with strong community pushback and criticism by local elected officials. The Milwaukee Turners, led by executive director Emilio De Torre, organized community opposition at public meetings, joined in advocacy by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters.

“My discussions with local advocates highlighted valid concerns regarding how such data could be accessed or perceived in the current national climate,” Ball said. “This decision is not a retreat from innovation but rather an understanding that timing matters, too.”

The sheriff first confirmed her agency was considering a data-sharing agreement with Biometrica in June last year. At the time, the firm had already started negotiating a data-sharing agreement with MPD that would provide access to facial recognition algorithms in exchange for 2.5 million mugshots.

The MCSO wanted to employ facial recognition technology to generate leads, feeding images of unidentified individuals suspected of a particular crime into the system and generating probable matches, Chief Deputy Brian Barkow told supervisors in December. The agency would not connect the technology to camera feeds, use it to live-scan faces, or surveil and track county residents, he said.

“So we get a sexual assault or a non-fatal shooting or a homicide that occurs, and we obtain video — could be from a church or a gas station across the street. We take that image and we run that image through this facial recognition software, and it comes back with a score of possible candidates as to who this, possibly, who this person is,” Barkow said.

The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors responded to MCSO interest in the technology by adopting a resolution requesting a formal, countywide facial recognition policy.

When it was revealed the sheriff was moving forward and negotiating an agreement with Biometrica, Sup. Justin Bielinski said he thought it was a “shocking” move by the sheriff following the public outcry and the reversal by MPD.

“I’m glad the Sheriff has listened to residents and Supervisors and decided not to pursue FRT within MCSO ‘at this time,’ but I would like to hear this discussed in a public setting , not issued in a short press statement,” Bielinski said after Ball’s announcement Friday. “There are some unanswered questions that would benefit from a broader discussion.”