The Police State is HERE!
MIKE BAKER
Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) —
In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver’s license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.
The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.
“Everybody’s participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver’s license,” said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union
Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.
In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.
“Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all,” analyst Michael Garcia said. “If I can probe a hundred fugitives and get one or two, that’s a home run.”
Facial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide.
So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. More distant possibilities include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person’s gait.
Calabrese said Americans should be concerned about how their driver’s licenses are being used.
Licenses “started as a permission to drive,” he said. “Now you need them to open a bank account. You need them to be identified everywhere. And suddenly they’re becoming the de facto law enforcement database.”
Gone are the days when states made drivers’ licenses by snapping Polaroid photos and laminating them onto cards without recording copies.
Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons[!!!].
North Carolina’s lab scans an image and, within 10 seconds, compares the likeness with other photos based on an algorithm of factors such as the width of a chin or the structure of cheekbones. The search returns several hundred photos ranked by the similarities.
“We’ll get some close hits, and we’ll get some hits that are right on,” said Stephen Lamm, who oversees the DMV lab.
MORE from original article…
Filed under: Blogroll, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Rights, activism, class war, culture, information, legal, life, news, politics, society | Leave a Comment
No Responses Yet to “The Surveillance State: FBI uses DMV photos in search for fugitives”