Detroit PD facial recognition use drops 91% in two years as lawsuits and settlement drive policy change

Detroit Police Department used facial recognition technology just nine times in 2025, a 91 per cent drop from 103 searches in 2023, according to a BridgeDetroit report published 28 April 2026. Three searches related to murders, three to aggravated assaults and two to robberies. The decline follows a 2024 settlement agreement arising from three wrongful arrest lawsuits, which required substantive changes to policy and procedure. A Board of Police Commissioners member described the near-absence of FRT use as a positive development and called for it to be reserved as a last resort. The Detroit pattern is consistent with a broader trend across US cities where litigation exposure and settlement-driven policy changes are converting FRT from a routine investigative tool into a narrowly used exception, reducing the total addressable market for FRT vendors targeting US law enforcement at scale.