Watch now: Facial recognition technology was tested by Normal police in training

Critics say it’s invasive — especially when used as surveillance — and that it can be discriminatory against people of color. The Macon County Sheriff’s Department ran between 1,001 and 5,000 searches on Clearview AI in less than a year. The Decatur Police Department also ran between 51 and 100 searches, but Police Chief James Getz Jr. said those coincided with experimental searches with the Macon County Sheriff's office. Ed German, a forensic scientist who spent time with the FBI, CIA, and as a criminal investigator with the U.S. Army, now works for the Macon County Sheriff’s Department training interns and officers on forensics. He said the department had a paid subscription to Clearview AI because “it works really, really well.”They had a Clearview account until “we had no choice,” German said.