Do you ever have the feeling that someone is watching you? Well to make you feel a little better, your hunch may be right. The FBI has a wide-spread facial recognition program that has the capability to search over four-hundred million images of faces. This includes passport, driver’s license, and visa databases. The internal unit responsible for searching through these photos is known as FACE (Facial Analysis, Comparison, and Evaluation). Not only can they search through the thirty million mugshots and civil photos in their database, they can also search in other federal and state databases.
Currently FBI’s FACE has access to 16 states databases and are currently trying to negotiate with another 18 states to gain access to their databases. Oh, and the FBI is asking that its database be exempt from parts of the Privacy Act.
The accuracy of the FACE system is not conclusive, but according to the Department of Justice says that any photos that come back as a possible match aren’t considered positively identified. So, they would only use it for investigative leads, not warrant action on their own.
On a final note: they say that everyone has 6 people in the world that look exactly like them. With this facial recognition technology, I really hope that none of my look a likes are jagoffs.
