Majority of Americans find it acceptable for law enforcement to use facial recognition to assess threats in public spaces %FFUSS adults who say the use offacial recognition technology in the following situations is in public spaces
When asked a separate set of questions about whether the use of facial recognition technology is acceptable under certain circumstances, the public again expresses more acceptance of these tools when used by law enforcement agencies than in other situations. A 59% majority of U.S. adults think it is acceptable for law enforcement agencies to use facial recognition technology to assess potential security threats in public spaces, while just 15% find this unacceptable. The rest are either unsure if this is acceptable or have not heard of facial recognition technology in the first place.
By comparison, larger shares of Americans find it unacceptable than find it acceptable for companies to use these technologies to automatically track the attendance of their employees (30% acceptable, 41% not acceptable), or for advertisers to use these tools to see how people respond to public advertising displays (15% acceptable, 54% unacceptable). The public is largely split on apartment building landlords using this technology to track who is entering or leaving their buildings: 36% think this is an acceptable use of facial recognition technology, but 34% think it is not.
Majority of Americans find it acceptable for law  | enforcement to use facial recognition to assess  | threats in public spaces  | %FFUSS adults who say the use offacial recognition technology  | in the following situations is  | Not acceptable  | Not sure  | Acceptable  | Law enforcement  | assessing security threats  | 15%  | 13%  | 59%  | in public spaces  | Apartment building landlords  | tracking who buildings enters or  | 36  | 34  | 15  | tracking leaves their buildings  | Com panies automatically  | tracking the attendance  | 41  | 15  | 30  | of their employees  | Advertisers seeing  | how people respond  | 16  | 15  | 54  | to public ad displays  | Note: Results do not add to 100% because the 13% of U.S. adults who have not heard of  | facial recognition technology ware not shown.  | Source: Survey of U.S. adults conducted June 3-17, 2019  | "More Than Half of U.S. Adults Trust Law Enforcement to Use Facial Recognition  | Responsibly"  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 