FBI used facial recognition to identify a Capitol rioter from Instagram posts
The FBI says it used facial recognition technology to track down and arrest an individual suspected of taking part in the US Capitol riots earlier this year. The case is notable for the FBI’s acknowledgement that it used facial recognition not just to confirm a suspect’s identity, but to discover it in the first place.
Federal agents tracked down an individual named Stephen Chase Randolph using crowdsourced images from the riots. They searched these pictures on the web using “an open source facial recognition tool, known to provide reliable results,” and this led to a public Instagram page apparently belonging to Randolph’s girlfriend which contained “numerous images” of the suspect.
