New documents released by the FBI indicate that the Bureau will have a fully operational face recognition database by this summer, which will start with 52 million images of criminals and non-criminals.
The FBI has never before linked the criminal and non-criminal fingerprint databases, until now.
It’s called Next Generation Identification, or NGI and it’s disconcerting because:
– NGI allows all levels of law enforcement to search non-criminal and criminal face records at the same time. So you could become a suspect in a criminal case just because you applied for a government job that required you to submit a photo with your background check.
– Second, the FBI and Congress haven’t enacted meaningful restrictions on what types of data can be submitted to the system, who can access the data, and how the data can be used. For example, nothing prevents the FBI from obtaining photographs off Facebook!
– False positives (someone being falsely identified), is a big problem. The system is only accurate 85 percent of the time.
Big Brother just keeps getting bigger.
New documents released by the FBI show that the Bureau is well on its way toward its goal of a fully operational face recognition database by this summer.EFF received these records in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for information on Next Generation Identification (NGI)—the FBI’s massive biometric database that may hold records on as much as one third of the U.S. population. The facial recognition component of this database poses real threats to privacy for all Americans.
What is NGI?
NGI builds on the FBI’s legacy fingerprint database—which already contains well over 100 million individual records—and has been designed to include multiple forms of biometric data, including palm prints and iris scans in addition to fingerprints and face recognition data. NGI combines all these forms of data in each individual’s file, linking them to personal and biographic data like name, home address, ID number, immigration status, age, race, etc. This immense database is shared with other federal agencies and with the approximately 18,000 tribal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the United States.
The records we received show that the face recognition component of NGI may include as many as 52 million face images by 2015. By 2012, NGI already contained 13.6 million images representing between 7 and 8 million individuals, and by the middle of 2013, the size of the database increased to 16 million images. The new records reveal that the database will be capable of processing 55,000 direct photo enrollments daily and of conducting tens of thousands of searches every day.
NGI Will Include Non-Criminal as well as Criminal Photos
One of our biggest concerns about NGI has been the fact that it will include non-criminal as well as criminal face images. We now know that FBI projects that by 2015, the database will include 4.3 million images taken for non-criminal purposes.
Currently, if you apply for any type of job that requires fingerprinting or a background check, your prints are sent to and stored by the FBI in its civil print database. However, the FBI has never before collected a photograph along with those prints. This is changing with NGI. Now an employer could require you to provide a “mug shot” photo along with your fingerprints. If that’s the case, then the FBI will store both your face print and your fingerprints along with your biographic data.
In the past, the FBI has never linked the criminal and non-criminal fingerprint databases. This has meant that any search of the criminal print database (such as to identify a suspect or a latent print at a crime scene) would not touch the non-criminal database. This will also change with NGI. Now every record—whether criminal or non—will have a “Universal Control Number” (UCN), and every search will be run against all records in the database. This means that even if you have never been arrested for a crime, if your employer requires you to submit a photo as part of your background check, your face image could be searched—and you could be implicated as a criminal suspect—just by virtue of having that image in the non-criminal file.
Many States Are Already Participating in NGI
The records detail the many states and law enforcement agencies the FBI has already been working with to build out its database of images (see map below). By 2012, nearly half of U.S. states had at least expressed an interest in participating in the NGI pilot program, and several of those states had already shared their entire criminal mug shot database with the FBI. The FBI hopes to bring all states online with NGI by this year.
The FBI worked particularly closely with Oregon through a special project called “Face Report Card.” The goal of the project was to determine and provide feedback on the quality of the images that states already have in their databases. Through Face Report Card, examiners reviewed 14,408 of Oregon’s face images and found significant problems with image resolution, lighting, background and interference. Examiners also found that the median resolution of images was “well-below” the recommended resolution of .75 megapixels (in comparison, newer iPhone cameras are capable of 8 megapixel resolution).
FBI Disclaims Responsibility for Accuracy
At such a low resolution, it is hard to imagine that identification will be accurate.1 However, the FBI has disclaimed responsibility for accuracy, stating that “[t]he candidate list is an investigative lead not an identification.”
Because the system is designed to provide a ranked list of candidates, the FBI states NGI never actually makes a “positive identification,” and “therefore, there is no false positive rate.” In fact, the FBI only ensures that “the candidate will be returned in the top 50 candidates” 85 percent of the time “when the true candidate exists in the gallery.”
It is unclear what happens when the “true candidate” does not exist in the gallery—does NGI still return possible matches? Could those people then be subject to criminal investigation for no other reason than that a computer thought their face was mathematically similar to a suspect’s? This doesn’t seem to matter much to the FBI—the Bureau notes that because “this is an investigative search and caveats will be prevalent on the return detailing that the [non-FBI] agency is responsible for determining the identity of the subject, there should be NO legal issues.”
Nearly 1 Million Images Will Come from Unexplained Sources
One of the most curious things to come out of these records is the fact that NGI may include up to 1 million face images in two categories that are not explained anywhere in the documents. According to the FBI, by 2015, NGI may include:
- 46 million criminal images
- 4.3 million civil images
- 215,000 images from the Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC)
- 750,000 images from a “Special Population Cognizant” (SPC) category
- 215,000 images from “New Repositories”
However, the FBI does not define either the “Special Population Cognizant” database or the “new repositories” category. This is a problem because we do not know what rules govern these categories, where the data comes from, how the images are gathered, who has access to them, and whose privacy is impacted.
A 2007 FBI document available on the web describes SPC as “a service provided to Other Federal Organizations (OFOs), or other agencies with special needs by agreement with the FBI” and notes that “[t]hese SPC Files can be specific to a particular case or subject set (e.g., gang or terrorist related), or can be generic agency files consisting of employee records.” If these SPC files and the images in the “new repositories” category are assigned a Universal Control Number along with the rest of the NGI records, then these likely non-criminal records would also be subject to invasive criminal searches.
It’s called =Nazi America “New World Order” this is too much ?
What a joke !!
Obama and our Media. lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, and more lies since 2008.
Americans Died, Hillary Clinton and Obama lied.
Obama and Holder gave weapons to the Drug Cartels with Fast and Furious, and lied about it.
Obama should have been fired the first time he wrote an Executive Order that changed our Laws.
Obama should have been fired for the invasion of Libya.
All of the world knows our Drone Attacks and our Covert War on Terror in Africa and the Middle East are wrong and our Administration is committing War Crimes by murdering innocent civiians.
Our current Administration, our current Senate, our current House, and the people in our corrupt Federal Agencies and the monsters of our Justice Department want robot cops in our streets and Drones in our skies committing the same carnage and destruction inside the United States.
No Incumbents.
They have not fired Eric Holder, Joe Biden, and Barrack Obama.
Eric Holder and Barrack Obama should have been fired for their lies and the abuse of their Office after the Zimmerman verdict and their Harassment and Intimidation of Zimmerman.
Eric Holder and Barrack Obama should have been fired for their lies and the abuse of their Office after a white guy committed the Knock Out Game for trying to have our Justice Department charge him with a Hate Crime, the Knock Out Game is Terrorism each time it is committed no matter what race the Terrorist is, lock them away.
Our current Administration gave weapons and money to Iran and Egypt.
End our stupid War on Terror.
Shut down the Bureau of Land Management and the IRS.
Repeal Obamacare.
Repeal the NDAA.
Repeal the Cyber Security Bill.
End the Sanctions against Russia. The violence was funded inside the United States.
Shut down the IRS.
Shut down the Bureau of Land Management.
Shut down the NSA, EPA, CIA, and Homeland Security or take away their weapons and any power they have other than investigation, they can turn their information they gather over to State Authorites, the FBI, or the Department of Justice, they have become too corrupt to function in their current capacity.
Our government is not more important than the people of our country.
No Incumbents.
They have not fired Eric Holder and Barrack Obama.
In the United States we should have the Freedom of Speech, the Freedom of Religion, and the Right to own a gun.
Joe Biden, Bloomberg, Eric Holder, and Barrack Obama love Gun Control and War more than Adolf Hitler did.
End our stupid War on Terror.
Quit trying to start a war with China and Russia.
If NATO or the Untied States had any respect for human life they would shut down their military operations near the Ukraine and end their stupid War on Terror, today.
The National Endowment for Democracy does the work of our State Department and our CIA, they funded the violence in the Ukraine, with the blessing of the Obama Administration so NATO and the United States could work at starting World War III.
That was the same reason the CIA and Obama were supporting the Terrorists in Syria and the same reason the NSA, CIA, and Obama wanted us to bomb Syria.
Vote each of our Senators and Representatives out.
They gave us our War on Terror and since 2008 they have gave us each of the horrible things Eric Holder, Joe Biden, and Barrack Obama has wanted.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for every Drone Attack and every covert CiA action every where in the world, the trillions of dollars wasted on Obama’s stupid War on Terror, and each one of them wants collateral damage just like what we have now in Africa and the Middle East in our cities with Robot Cops and Drones.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for the economy of the United States being in the toilet.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for the Senate and the House being too childish to work together.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for the war crimes committed by the As Qaeda in Syria and their use of Chemical Weapons.
Your current Senator and Representative wanted bomb Syria based on Obama’s lies and the lies our NSA and CIA.
All of our Federal Agencies are the most corrupt they have ever been. Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for Obama and our CIA supporting and financing Al Qaeda Terrorists in Syria.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for millions of dollars and modern weapons being shipped to Egypt and Iran.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for weapons being given to the Drug Cartels in the Americas.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for Obamacare, which is unconstitutional and gives the Federal Government the control of how you spend your money on Health Care and what medical treatment you receive. The delays in the most horrible parts of Obamacare are not fixing anything.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for giving control of Obamacancer to the IRS, the most corrupt federal organization in the world.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for the NDAA and the Patriot Act, which strips everyone of their freedom from arrest and imprisonment without due cause, due process, or the right to face your accuser and gives our government the right to have Political Prisons inside the United States as they have in Cuba and other undisclosed locations.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for every travesty caused by the Shut Down including taking our National Parks and Monuments from us and threatening our veterans with non payment of benefits.
Your current Senator and Representative is directly responsible for every hour a person with a painful disease or injury is kept from treatment with Marijuana which does not have the toxins or side effects of our prescription medications.
Each of your current Senators and Representaives is responsible for our government doing nothing to stop the Terrorism called the Knock out Game.
Each of your current Senators and Representaives is responsible for our government allowing George Soros and the National Endowment for Democracy to support and fund the violence in the Ukraine and for imposting sanctions on Russia for protecting their people from that violence. NATO and the United States are the bad guys in the Ukraine and the bad guys in the War on Terror.
Every one of our current Senators and Representatives hate your Human Rights and Freedoms just as much as Obama, Biden, and Holder, or they would have fired the monsters by now.
Each of your current Senators and Representaives is guilty of not firing Obama for writing Executive Orders that change our laws.
Each of your current Senators and Representaives is guilty of letting the Bureau of Land Managment, the EPA, and the IRS become so corrupt under Obama and Eric Holder that they can not function legally.
Americans died, Obama and Hillary lied.
No Incumbents.
Vote them out.
Hey- FACE THIS !!!
put on a sky mask before you go out !!!!
Sounds like Germany under HITLERS RULE>>
If We Have Any Hope Of EVER Validating Our “BROKEN” Voting System !!! We NEED TO Go “HIGH TECH” As HELL ! ! The Above Would Be A Good Start ! ; And Establish A State, NOT Gov., DNA Data Base! ! !***
This is really scary ——-
And they can’t take the time to check out the Presidents birth certificate? The FBI is a rogue agency unto themselves, if they would back their oath of office, Obama would be in jail now.