For facial recognition experts and privacy advocates, the East Bay detective’s request, while dystopian, was also entirely predictable. It emphasizes the ways that, without oversight, law enforcement is able to mix and match technologies in unintended ways, using untested algorithms to single out suspects based on unknowable criteria.
I am on the same boat. Somewhat similar thing was already done by those forensic sketch people that drew how a person might look like after x years if they had earlier photo. It’s not like those sketches meant they are irrefutable proof, just a method to potentially find what you are looking for and then investigate further.
That said, this feels like grasping at straws. I cannot fathom how with only DNA sample you could get an accurate portrait that face recognition could then match.