5 ms·

FBI uses facial recognition to compare subjects with driver's license photos

90 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

TempleOS 13y ago
I got a close-up tour of Luke AFB from the base commanding general. Recruited me. I studied the side windwinder at Goodyear aerospace in the explorer scouts. I saw the chicken gun fired at canopies. I saw the image processing for the SR71. Explorer scout in high school. I got a scholarship to ASU from Unidynamics. My Dad worked there. They make lasers that ignite explosives to cut cables on our nuke missiles. I studied rocket science. I am a wolverine. Fuck off pigs. Fucken india niggers.
coenhyde 13y ago
Of course the FBI has been doing this and I don't actually have a problem with it. Matching data between established government agency databases seems like a smart thing to do. This is VERY different from what the NSA has been doing. No privacy has been compromised here.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  I guess I wonder why they need it? Why are they entitled to it? As others have noted, we have pictures on our driver's licenses so that our person can be connected with our certification to drive in the event we are detained by police. There are state IDs with pictures that connect our person with our official identity if detained by police. This just sounds like some preemptive evidence gathering or perhaps at its most innocuous a free source of "data" to refine their recognition systems. I don't recall that anywhere in the enumerated list of powers of the government.
- btilly 13y ago
  The problem with this is a very high rate of false positives. Law enforcement already does too much railroading of innocent people who are convenient to target. This makes it easier to find a likely innocent person who is easy to target.
nsp 13y ago
I thought this was public knowledge, iirc certain states (NJ And possibly others) ask you not is mile because it ostensibly makes recognition easier. A Source: rt.com/usa/license-jersey-recognition-face-956/
jamesaguilar 13y ago
Why shouldn't they? There is no issue of search or seizure here. Unless you never step outside your home, you should have no expectation that your face's features are private.
- mistercow 13y ago
  There's no clear Constitutional objection here. But there is the prosecutor's fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy Basically, it's the same problem as with "cold hits" and DNA testing.
  - mjn 13y ago
    There is also an issue of things that are individually expected turning into an unexpected, and possibly undesired, result through technologically enabled cross-referencing. For example, if you combine face-recognition, driver's license databases, and feeds from public security cameras, you can (albeit currently with quite a bit of error) track someone's movements around town. All of the individual components are reasonably expected. But people traditionally don't expect the result: the state having a map of everywhere they went today, without having to get a warrant to attach a tracking device or to subpoena mobile-phone records. Whether this should matter legally seems a bit up in the air. The position that it should is sometimes called the "mosaic theory" of the 4th amendment: http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      I do not like that theory of the fourth amendment. I am neither lawyer nor historian, but what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. (Hence why seizure was highlighted.) Some of the other amendments, like the third, were also to remedy specific, recent abuses. Which is not to dispute the fourth's broader (and good) applicability, but I would wonder what the justification is for broadening it that much. The purpose of the amendment is not to give criminals a certain minimum chance of avoiding detection by making it hard to collect evidence. That is just an incidental result. So long as such monitoring is not used as a means to stifle legal dissent, I have no objection to it. My 2c. That said, I'm not a strict constitutionalist. The law should reflect the good of the people now, not just what guys thought a long time ago. If it does more harm than good, the mosaic theory maybe should prevail.
Pxtl 13y ago
This is why laws against wearing masks at a protest are really bad.
pacomerh 13y ago
Doesn't surprise me. If they didn't have access to this information they would not be the FBI.
locacorten 13y ago
I would've really like to know more about the case uses of this technology. I think FR is way too inaccurate to pick up people from a crowd based on the driver's license photo database. I think they probably use it for some sort of offline comparison of two pictures.

90 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

I got a close-up tour of Luke AFB from the base commanding general. Recruited me. I studied the side windwinder at Goodyear aerospace in the explorer scouts. I saw the chicken gun fired at canopies. I saw the image processing for the SR71. Explorer scout in high school. I got a scholarship to ASU from Unidynamics. My Dad worked there. They make lasers that ignite explosives to cut cables on our nuke missiles. I studied rocket science. I am a wolverine. Fuck off pigs. Fucken india niggers.

coenhyde 13y ago

Of course the FBI has been doing this and I don't actually have a problem with it. Matching data between established government agency databases seems like a smart thing to do. This is VERY different from what the NSA has been doing. No privacy has been compromised here.

wavefunction 13y ago
I guess I wonder why they need it? Why are they entitled to it? As others have noted, we have pictures on our driver's licenses so that our person can be connected with our certification to drive in the event we are detained by police. There are state IDs with pictures that connect our person with our official identity if detained by police. This just sounds like some preemptive evidence gathering or perhaps at its most innocuous a free source of "data" to refine their recognition systems. I don't recall that anywhere in the enumerated list of powers of the government.
btilly 13y ago
The problem with this is a very high rate of false positives. Law enforcement already does too much railroading of innocent people who are convenient to target. This makes it easier to find a likely innocent person who is easy to target.

nsp 13y ago

I thought this was public knowledge, iirc certain states (NJ And possibly others) ask you not is mile because it ostensibly makes recognition easier. A Source: rt.com/usa/license-jersey-recognition-face-956/

jamesaguilar 13y ago

Why shouldn't they? There is no issue of search or seizure here. Unless you never step outside your home, you should have no expectation that your face's features are private.

mistercow 13y ago
There's no clear Constitutional objection here. But there is the prosecutor's fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy Basically, it's the same problem as with "cold hits" and DNA testing.
- mjn 13y ago
  There is also an issue of things that are individually expected turning into an unexpected, and possibly undesired, result through technologically enabled cross-referencing. For example, if you combine face-recognition, driver's license databases, and feeds from public security cameras, you can (albeit currently with quite a bit of error) track someone's movements around town. All of the individual components are reasonably expected. But people traditionally don't expect the result: the state having a map of everywhere they went today, without having to get a warrant to attach a tracking device or to subpoena mobile-phone records. Whether this should matter legally seems a bit up in the air. The position that it should is sometimes called the "mosaic theory" of the 4th amendment: http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/111/3/Kerr.pdf
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    I do not like that theory of the fourth amendment. I am neither lawyer nor historian, but what I remember of the purpose was to prevent the state using the police as a means of harassment, as the British did before our independence. (Hence why seizure was highlighted.) Some of the other amendments, like the third, were also to remedy specific, recent abuses. Which is not to dispute the fourth's broader (and good) applicability, but I would wonder what the justification is for broadening it that much. The purpose of the amendment is not to give criminals a certain minimum chance of avoiding detection by making it hard to collect evidence. That is just an incidental result. So long as such monitoring is not used as a means to stifle legal dissent, I have no objection to it. My 2c. That said, I'm not a strict constitutionalist. The law should reflect the good of the people now, not just what guys thought a long time ago. If it does more harm than good, the mosaic theory maybe should prevail.

Pxtl 13y ago

This is why laws against wearing masks at a protest are really bad.

pacomerh 13y ago

Doesn't surprise me. If they didn't have access to this information they would not be the FBI.

locacorten 13y ago

I would've really like to know more about the case uses of this technology. I think FR is way too inaccurate to pick up people from a crowd based on the driver's license photo database. I think they probably use it for some sort of offline comparison of two pictures.