Cop Trainer Encouraging Cops To Run Facial Recognition Searches On People During Traffic Stops

Cops are out there giving each other bad advice. An instructor for Street Cop Training -- a New Jersey based provider of officer training programs -- is telling officers it's ok to run facial recognition searches during routine traffic stops, when not encouraging them to go further with their potential rights violations.

In a podcast recently uncovered by Caroline Haskins for Insider, Maryland detective Nick Jerman tells listeners there's nothing wrong with running a facial image against publicly available databases during a traffic stop.

In a July 2021 episode of the Street Cop Podcast with Dennis Benigno, the company's founder, Jerman encouraged using facial recognition software to determine the identity of the person pulled over. The Street Cop Podcast is advertised as "The training that cops deserve" and, along with Street Cop Training's other programs, is marketed to active-duty police.

"Let's say you're on a traffic stop and we have someone in the car that we suspect may be wanted," Benigno asked during the episode. "What do we do in that situation?"

"Well there's a couple of paid programs you can use where you can take their picture, and it'll put it in," Jerman said, referring to facial recognition tools, before recommending "another one called PimEyes you can use." PimEyes is a free, public-facing facial-recognition search engine.

The legality of running searches like this is still up in the air. If there's nothing beyond suspicion a vehicle occupant might be a wanted suspect, officers would likely have to develop something a little more reasonable before engaging in searches -- like utilizing a facial recognition program -- unrelated to the traffic stop. And in some states and cities, it is very definitely illegal, thanks to recent facial recognition tech bans. Just because the cops may not own the tech utilized during these searches doesn't necessarily make actions like these legal.

But that's not the only potential illegality Detective Jerman (who, as Haskins points out, is currently being investigated by his department over some very questionable social media posts) encourages. He notes that in many states officers cannot demand people they stop ID themselves, especially when they're just passengers in a vehicle. He recommends this bit of subterfuge to obtain this information without consent.

"How about, you're in a situation where you can't compel ID and before you even ask you're like there's something not right with this guy and he's gonna lie," Benigno said.

Jerman suggested getting the person's phone number, either by asking the person, or by accusing the person of stealing a phone in the car and asking if they can call the phone in order to exonerate them.

"[Say] 'I see that phone in the car, we've had a lot of thefts of phones,' say 'Is that really your phone?' and then you can call it to see if that's the real phone number," Jerman said. "If you can get the phone number from your target, the world is your oyster."

Once a cop has a phone number, they can use third-party services to discover the phone owner's name and may be able to find any social media accounts associated with that phone number. The request may sound innocuous -- seeking to see if a phone is stolen -- but the end result may be someone unwittingly sharing a great deal about themselves with an officer.

Detective Jerman also provides classes on how to create fake social media accounts using freely accessible tools. He does this despite knowing it's a terms of service violation and appears to believe that since there's no law against it, officers should avail themselves of this subterfuge option. He has also made social media posts mocking Facebook and others for telling cops they're breaking the pla