The Police State Trods On: 5 Things You Should Know About the FBI's Massive New Biometric Database
http://www.alternet.org/rights/153664/5_things_you_should_know_about_the_fbi%7Cs_massive_new_biometric_database/?page=entire
The FBI claims that their fingerprint database (IAFIS) is the "largest biometric database in the world,"
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/fingerprints_biometrics/iafis/iafis containing records for over a hundred million people.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/fingerprints_biometrics/iafis/iafis But that's nothing compared to the agency's plans for Next Generation Identification (NGI), a massive, billion-dollar upgrade that will hold iris scans, photos searchable with face recognition technology, palm prints, and measures of gait and voice recordings alongside records of fingerprints, scars, and tattoos.
Ambitions for the final product are candidly spelled out in an agency report: "The FBI recognizes a need to collect as much biometric data as possible within information technology systems, and to make this information accessible to all levels of law enforcement, including International agencies." (A stack of documents
http://uncoverthetruth.org/ related to NGI was obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights and others after a FOIA lawsuit.)
It'll be "Bigger -- Better -- Faster," the FBI brags on their Web site.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/fingerprints_biometrics/ngi/ngi-overview Unsurprisingly, civil libertarians have concerns about the privacy ramifications of a bigger, better, faster way to track Americans using their body parts. "NGI will expand the type and breadth of information FBI keeps on all of us," says Sunita Patel of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "There should be a balance between gathering information for law enforcement, and gathering information for its own sake."
Here are 5 things you should probably know about NGI:
1. Face Recognition
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