FBI, ICE find state driver's license photos are a gold mine for facial-recognition searches

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post



A cache of records shared with The Washington Post reveals that agents are scanning hundreds of millions of Americans’ faces without their knowledge or consent.

By Drew Harwell July 7 at 3:54 PM

Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned state driver’s license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine, scanning through hundreds of millions of Americans’ photos without their knowledge or consent, newly released documents show.

Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents and emails over the past five years, obtained through public-records requests by Georgetown Law researchers and provided to The Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.

Police have long had access to fingerprints, DNA and other “biometric data” taken from criminal suspects. But the DMV records contain the photos of a vast majority of a state’s residents, most of whom have never been charged with a crime.

Neither Congress nor state legislatures have authorized the development of such a system, and growing numbers of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are criticizing the technology as a dangerous, pervasive and error-prone surveillance tool.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/07/fbi-ice-find-state-drivers-license-photos-are-gold-mine-facial-recognition-searches/

[OnDoutside]

1. ACLU are going to dine out on these lawsuits.

[Tess49]

2. They will shriek with laughter if they see my driver's license picture. Other than that, this is an

invasion of privacy.

[mahina]

3. Any DUer have access to facial recognition software? Indivisible Hawai'i needs your help.

We have photos of a young man who is harassing people attending our protests. We would really like to know if he is local and if so, who he is.

The black knee socks with shorts indicate that he is not from here.

Thanks.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Have you tried Google image search?

There is also Bing image search. https://www.wikihow.com/Do-an-Image-Search-on-Bing

[mahina]

5. Thank you for the suggestion. I have, but never for faces. The photos are our own of him.

I’ll give it a go~ mahalo.

My great greats lived in Arkansas. I hope to see the area one day.

[Archae]

6. I hope they scan my face.

I'm so ugly their data center would blow up.



"Face courtesy of General Motors!"

[yaesu]

7. when they come across my recent DMV photo its guaranteed to break the scanner. nt

[yaesu]

8. reminds me of all those DNA, ancestry companies that law enforcement use to compare to

crime scene DNA. All they need to do is match it to a relative & through process of elimination they track the person down, I didn't even know they did this until I watched a crime channel while traveling.

[Talitha]

9. Doesn't bother me in the least.

There are cameras in parking lots, gas stations, stores, etc... not to mention all of the cell phones out there. Privacy went the way of the Dodo bird a long time ago.