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| DATE | 2013-06-16 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] biometrics - I can see you!!
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/state-photo-id-databases-become-troves-for-police/2013/06/16/6f014bd4-ced5-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html
State photo-ID databases become troves for police
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The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in Florida has built one of the
country’s most advanced facial-recognition programs. The Pinellas
County Sheriff's Office in Florida has built one of the country’s
most advanced facial-recognition programs. (Edward Linsmier/For The
Washington Post)
Written by Craig Timberg Ellen Nakashima
E-mail the writers
The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo
databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license
fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects,
accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal
investigations.
The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally
operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches
are conducted for “law enforcement purposes.” Amid rising
concern about the National Security Agency’s high-tech surveillance
aimed at foreigners, it is these state-level facial-recognition programs
that more typically involve American citizens.
The most widely used systems were honed on the battlefields of
Afghanistan and Iraq as soldiers sought to identify insurgents. The
increasingly widespread deployment of the technology in the United
States has helped police find murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers,
many of whom leave behind images on surveillance videos or social-media
sites that can be compared against official photo databases.
But law enforcement use of such facial searches is blurring the
traditional boundaries between criminal and non-criminal databases,
putting images of people never arrested in what amount to perpetual
digital lineups. The most advanced systems allow police to run searches
from laptop computers in their patrol cars and offer access to the FBI
and other federal authorities.
VIDEO: Faceprints make it hard for criminals, and non-criminals, to hide
Such open access has caused a backlash in some of the few states where
there has been a public debate. As the databases grow larger and
increasingly connected across jurisdictional boundaries, critics warn
that authorities are developing what amounts to a national
identification system — based on the distinct geography of each
human face.
“Where is government going to go with that years from now?” said
Louisiana state Rep. Brett Geymann, a conservative Republican who has
fought the creation of such systems there. “Here your driver’s
license essentially becomes a national ID card.”
Facial-recognition technology is part of a new generation of biometric
tools that once were the stuff of science fiction but are increasingly
used by authorities around the nation and the world. Though not yet as
reliable as fingerprints, these technologies can help determine identity
through individual variations in irises, skin textures, vein patterns,
palm prints and a person’s gait while walking.
The Supreme Court’s approval this month of DNA collection during
arrests coincides with rising use of that technology as well, with
suspects in some cases submitting to tests that put their genetic
details in official databases, even if they are never convicted of a
crime.
Facial-recognition systems are more pervasive and can be deployed
remotely, without subjects knowing that their faces have been captured.
Today’s driver’s-
license databases, which also include millions of images of people who
get non-driver ID cards to open bank accounts or board airplanes,
typically were made available for police searches with little public
notice.
Thirty-seven states now use facial-recognition technology in their
driver’s-license registries, a Washington Post review found. At
least 26 of those allow state, local or federal law enforcement agencies
to search — or request searches — of photo databases in an
attempt to learn the identities of people considered relevant to
investigations.
“This is a tool to benefit law enforcement, not to violate your
privacy rights,” said Scott McCallum, head of the facial-recognition
unit in Pinellas County, Fla., which has built one of the nation’s
most advanced systems.
The technology produces investigative leads, not definitive
identifications. But research efforts are focused on pushing the
software to the point where it can reliably produce the names of people
in the time it takes them to walk by a video camera. This already works
in controlled, well-lit settings when the database of potential matches
is relatively small. Most experts expect those limitations to be
surmounted over the next few years.
That prospect has sparked fears that the databases authorities are
building could someday be used for monitoring political rallies,
sporting events or even busy downtown areas. Whatever the security
benefits — especially at a time when terrorism remains a serious
threat — the mass accumulation of location data on individuals could
chill free speech or the right to assemble, civil libertarians say.
“As a society, do we want to have total surveillance? Do we want to
give the government the ability to identify individuals wherever they
are .?.?. without any immediate probable cause?” asked Laura
Donohue, a Georgetown University law professor who has studied
government facial databases. “A police state is exactly what this
turns into if everybody who drives has to lodge their information with
the police.”
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