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A Resolution of the City Commission accepting the recommendation of the Procurement Officer to enter into a contract with Clearview Al for the Police Department, as a “Sole Source Procurement,” pursuant to Section 2-689 of the City’s Procurement Code.
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The Police Department has determined a need for access to a search engine of publicly available facial images as a research tool for use in criminal investigations. Through research conducted to find a solution, the Police Department recommends Clearview AI to provide this function. The engagement for the services will be for a three (3) year period.
Clearview AI provides a search engine and proprietary database - comprised of the largest single repository of indexed publicly available online facial data from the public internet (i.e., social media, online profiles, news articles, personal and professional websites, mug shots, criminal databases, public record sites and other open sources). The use of analytic facial recognition searches of publicly available facial online imagery is a practice utilized by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in the furtherance of public safety for the purposes of supporting the investigative process.
Clearview AI is CJIS compliant and is positioned as a sole source vendor due to the uniqueness of their services which include analytic facial recognition; association of imagery to websites, domains and URLs; system oversight (auditing and reporting features); and single interface platform. The sole source status was validated and approved by the Chief Procurement Officer.
Under Section 2-689 of the Procurement Code, entitled “Sole Source Procurement,” an award may be made without competitive bids when there is only one source available to fulfill the needs of the City.