FBI Ramps Up Next Generation ID Roll-Out—Will You End Up in the Database?

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/20-3

NextGov.com is reporting that the FBI will begin rolling out its Next Generation Identification (NGI) facial recognition service as early as this January. Once NGI is fully deployed and once each of its approximately 100 million records also includes photographs, it will become trivially easy to find and track Americans.

As we detailed in an earlier post, NGI expands the FBI’s IAFIS criminal and civil fingerprint database to include multimodal biometric identifiers such as iris scans, palm prints, photos, and voice data. The Bureau is planning to introduce each of these capabilities in phases (pdf, p.4) over the next two and a half years, starting with facial recognition in four states—Michigan, Washington, Florida, and North Carolina—this winter.

Why Should We Be Worried?

Despite the FBI’s claims to the contrary, NGI will result in a massive expansion of government data collection for both criminal and noncriminal purposes. IAFIS is already the largest biometric database in the world—it includes 70 million subjects in the criminal master file and more than 31 million civil fingerprints. Even if there are duplicate entries or some overlap between civil and criminal records, the combined number of records covers close to 1/3 the population of the United States. When NGI allows photographs and other biometric identifiers to be linked to each of those records, all easily searchable through sophisticated search tools, it will have an unprecedented impact on Americans' privacy interests.

More at the link --

[gratuitous]

1. What's to worry about?

I have been repeatedly assured over the last several months that I have nothing to worry about from my government, unless I'm a very bad person or unless I fail to check carefully whether everyone I meet, travel by vehicle with, or otherwise share breathing space with is not a very bad person. And if the United States suddenly liquidates me it was because I didn't avail myself of the opportunity to turn myself in, or because I was insufficiently careful of who I palled around with, or it was just plain old bad luck and too bad for me, and you can't blame the United States because we're at war, you know.

Besides, the search tools will be very sophisticated, and nobody's going to feel pressured to produce results (like, say, a dead body) just to satisfy some gung-ho higher-up or nitwit elected official or the latest appropriations request. So all your worry is for nothing. Nothing, I say!

[HopeHoops]

2. What's to WORRY ABOUT? What's to WORRY ABOUT?

I fucking look like Tommy Chong! THAT'S what to worry about!!

[TheWraith]

4. More like "as long as you're not murdering people, you have nothing to worry about."

If we're going to adhere to something like reality, as opposed to a 200 foot tall strawman argument.

[Name removed]

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