Yeah but all of us in this thread already know that they're different people, so we're primed to come to that conclusion. However with no prior info, short glances and casual checks, they absolutely can be considered to "look the same".

Anywho this is a prime example of why you need humans that aren't involved in a situation to be in the loop to augment the facial-recognition algorithms. Enable them to view clean, high-res, zoom-able versions of the source images and then have them make the final call. Heck, if you're worried about bias, assign the task to a panel of people from various ethnicities, or maybe just to people of the same ethnicity as the involved person.

I disagree with your premise that they "look the same" even at a casual check, but even if we assume that's true, we're talking about 10 days here. I think the "casual check" excuse expires around the 10 minute mark.

Agreed - I think their plausible excuse expires after they get look of the person and I guess whatever "documents" or images they were checking them against the facial-recognition matched them.

Btw, I'm not saying they look the same. I'm saying at a casual glance or quick look, or grainy-surveillance footage level, they do look strikingly similar.

Another factor though we may not be considering in general regarding facial-recognition is identity theft. I've dealt with that sort of thing before, and if you're not careful the government might get really confused as to who the "actual" person is, and who was the one that stole the identity is. Again, not the case here, but it is something that police need to consider.