DHS's national police facial recognition program
DHS/Governor's Crime Commission is giving police grants to expand their facial recognition program nationally.
The use of facial recognition software continues to grow in the public safety realm as law enforcement agencies deploy the technology for “one-to-one” identification purposes. That means using the technology to try to identify an individual from a mug shot-type of photo or a still from a video.
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.
“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.”
“The first thing that’s very concerning is why hasn’t there been more public discussion about the use of this technology,” said Mike Meno, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. “There needs to be really strong policies and regulations to make sure the technology does not invade a person’s privacy rights.”
In January, the police department submitted a grant proposal to the (DHS) Governor’s Crime Commission to purchase the software and was awarded $43,650. On Tuesday, the Raleigh City Council gave the department the green light to begin using the software. The council passed the measure unanimously, without discussion.
Facial recognition technology is growing. The Washington Post reported 37 states were using it in their driver’s license registries and at least 26 allow state, local or federal law enforcement agencies to use it to search – or request searches – of photo databases in an attempt to learn the identities of people who may be relevant to criminal investigations.
Spokeswoman Laura Hourigan was not sure whether a photographic match made using the software would be admissible as evidence in court. She said during the test period, the software will be used by the detectives as an investigative tool that will give them “more information.”
“The detectives will still do follow-up work and follow leads,” she said. “The software is a stepping stone.”
Hourigan said the software will use three facial recognition programs. However, the city is still in “a contractual process” and the names of the software manufacturers were not available.
The announcement of Raleigh’s program coincides with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s own facial recognition system, the Next Generation Identification program, which the agency indicated this week is fully operational. The FBI’s system will collect 52 million photos by the end of 2015, with 4.3 million of the images obtained for noncriminal reasons, such as employer background checks, according to the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, an international digital rights group in San Francisco.
The Raleigh, N.C., Police Department is one of the latest to announce it will deploy the technology, in this case, as a one-year test according to the Raleigh News and Observer.
The FBI is preparing to accelerate the collection of DNA profiles for the government's massive new biometric identification database.
Developers of portable DNA analysis machines have been invited to a Nov. 13 presentation to learn about the bureau's vision for incorporating their technology into the FBI's new database.
So-called rapid DNA systems can draw up a profile in about 90 minutes.
Rapid DNA analysis can be performed by cops in less than two hours, rather than by technicians at a scientific lab over several days. The benefit for law enforcement is that an officer can run a cheek swab on the spot or while an arrestee is in temporary custody. If there is a database match, they can then move to lock up the suspect immediately.
There's a huge backlog of untested DNA waiting for CODIS-qualified lab analysis. Offloading some of the work to private labs or portable devices sounds like a great way ease that congestion, but it actually could create more problems. If the government believes that only its chosen labs are capable of producing solid analysis, fixes like those suggested by three California Congressional reps would ask law enforcement (including the FBI) to decide which evidence goes the Gold Standard labs and what gets passed along to the lesser, unproven venues.
Without an across-the-board certification of all methods (with rigid testing and re-testing to ensure quality) as being equal, there's a good chance collected DNA will be treated just as prejudicially as the suspects themselves. And, if the expansion of CODIS inputs isn't handled with rigorous oversight, the chances of the guilty going free and the innocent being imprisoned increases.
At what point will Americans stand up and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH? DHS, NSA the FBI, local police are all working together to create a national biometric database on every American.
http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2014/09/fbi-plans-rapid-dna-dragnets/94892/?oref=ng-HPriver
Below, are links to DHS's Governor's Crime Commission
The National Governors Association Center:
A Governor's Guide To Homeland Security:
http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1011GOVGUIDEHS.PDF
Grant info:
https://www.nccrimecontrol.org/Index2.cfm?a=000003,000010,000021,000362