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ORWELL INDEX

Who uses facial recognition in Denton County?

What we do not know

Denton County Sheriff

  • How many Clearview searches the Sheriff's Office has run each year since May 2023, and for what kinds of cases.
  • Whether the office has a written facial recognition policy, and whether a match alone can support an arrest or a warrant.
  • Whether the office has ever asked Clearview to delete its data under the 2023 addendum.
  • What images the office uploads, and whether the "agency-specific custom databases" Clearview offers are in use.
  • Whether any case in Denton County courts has relied on a Clearview search, and whether defendants were told.

What facial recognition is

Software that measures a face in an image and searches for a match in a database of known faces. It can be run on live camera feeds or on recorded footage after the fact.

How they work, why agencies buy them, and every county we have documented →

What you can do

Civic action

Show up

This technology is bought and renewed by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Denton County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Denton County →

Personal protection

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense ↗