The huge database referred to in a report by the US Congressional investigation organ GAO, which is the US equivalent of the Auditor General in Norway.
The FBI should do more to ensure privacy and accuracy using this facial recognition technology, concludes GAO report said.
See also: – FBI asks us create software similar cancer
Passport and visa pictures
FBI huge database includes 173 million portraits fetched from the American driver’s license registry.
images passport registry are also entered into the database, as are photos of all those who have applied for a visa to the United States in recent years.
the database is managed by a separate hitherto unknown entity in the FBI bearing the name Facial Analysis, Comparison and Evaluation (FACE).
Do not quality assured
the FBI has developed sophisticated applications for biometric Face and
KEPT HIDDEN: the FBI has built up a database which currently counts 412 million portraits, without the public became aware of this. Photo: To © Kacper Pempel / Reuters / Reuters
use the database regularly to identify suspicious people who appear on surveillance photos and videos, but has done little to assure the quality of technology, turn GAO stuck.
the danger that innocents are identified as criminals is therefore imminent, they believe, and points out that the FBI nor has informed the public about the new database, as they are required to do by law the right to privacy in 1974.
Imprecise results
the new database was adopted in April 2015 after a trial period of three years, it goes up by the GAO report.
Since the FBI has made 36,000 searches in the database, but these results seldom a direct identification.
for each face which checked against the database, it results in up to 50 hits other people. Many innocent thus comes under scrutiny and risk an unpleasant meeting with FBI investigators who must make the final identification manually.
See also: FBI iPhonehack cost millions
Lite transparency
According to the GAO, the FBI has not yet reported on privacy challenges related to
FBI has developed advanced face recognition technology in order to identify suspects from surveillance images using its new database. Photo: Jussi Nukari / NTB scanpix
The new technology, which makes it difficult for outsiders to gain access and control the scope and use of the database.
– This report is startling, says the head of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University, Alvaro Bedoya, the online newspaper the Guardian.
– the FBI has in practice created a nationwide system for face recognition which not only includes criminals, but tens of millions of law-abiding Americans who never have been informed about this. The scope and nature of this project is second to none, said Bedoya.
Worried
GAO report on the FBI’s new database was commissioned by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. He is concerned about what has now emerged.
– Face Detection Technology is a powerful tool that can mean a lot of police work. But if we can not assure us that this technology is precisely to protect us from abuse, I am concerned about the risk that innocent Americans could be subject to investigation, says Franken, commenting on the report.
No comments:
Post a Comment