Ride the Lightning
Cybersecurity and Future of Law Practice Blog
by Sharon D. Nelson Esq., President of Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
FBI – 52 Million Facial Recognition Images by 2015?
April 16, 2014
According to a story from the BBC, that appears to be the plan.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) obtained information about the project through a Freedom of information Act request. A primary concern is that the images of non-criminals will be stored with those of criminals.
The facial recognition database is part of the bureau's Next Generation Identification (NGI) program which is a large biometric database being developed to replace the current Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). The program will include facial recognition images, fingerprints, iris scans and palm prints.
The EFF said that the records it has seen show the facial recognition portion of the NGI already contained 16 million images in 2013 and has the capability to contain as many as 52 million images by 2015.
In the current system, the fingerprints of criminals and non-criminals are kept in separate databases. Under the new system, if a job candidate is asked by an employer to submit a photo along with their fingerprints, this will be stored by the FBI too. The difference is that all photos will be stored in the same database regardless of whether someone has been arrested for a crime.
Clearly, this means that you could be implicated as a criminal suspect if you resemble one. Research has shown that the risk of false identifications increases as the size of the dataset increases.
Back in 2012, the FBI official in charge of the NGI program said the FBI would limit the system to criminal information. Just two years later, a decision has apparently been made to deviate from that commitment – with huge privacy implications. Huzzah to the EFF for bringing this information to the public's attention – we are always the last to know.
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