Quantcast
Channel: SoftSupplier » social networking sites
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

FBI Rolls Out $1 Billion On Public Facial Recognition

0
0

FBI is serious about the idea of a facial recognition system, expected to be functional in 2014. As consequence, $1billion is just fine to build and implement a database of Americans' photographs, mostly of criminals.

FBI Rolls Out $1 Billion On Public Facial Recognition

FBI Rolls Out $1 Billion On Public Facial Recognition 

To be more precise, this system will help officials fight crime by matching surveillance photographs with images of known offenders. But privacy advocates aren't that convinced that FBI isn't trying to do something else. Imagine if the program had full access to every driving license, passport and health records, which would be a direct blow to what freedom means nowadays. As you can figure out, they have protested against this project and promise to keep protesting, until FBI will unveil every detail about it.

According to New Scientist, the Next Generation Identification program has been improved for several years and now is ready to become public. Officially, the program involves several hi-tech identification measures such as DNA analysis, voice recognition and iris scans, all that authorities need to fight crimes. As you can imagine, nothing won't seem unwell, with the exception of the facial recognition. FBI says that it`s essential and invaluable in solving and preventing crime, while citizen groups fear about their privacy.

FBI Rolls Out $1 Billion On Public Facial Recognition

FBI Rolls Out $1 Billion On Public Facial Recognition 

Next Generation Identification has two primary uses: the first one is to allow officials to pick a person from the crowd and secondly, this individual will be photographed and compared with former or current criminals, through a database of faces. It sounds quite secure, but what if the perfect system points a person, who doesn't have nothing in common with a criminal, but still is arrested?

Facial recognition software is already used by social networking sites such as Facebook to help users tag their friends in pictures, reckoned to have an accuracy rate of over 90%. As in the case of Facebook, some campaigners are concerned that the government could build a photographic database of nearly every American, potentially vulnerable to hackers, besides the possibility that somebody who hasn't done anything wrong could be suspected.

For the moment, a FBI official, Jerome Pender, told Senate that the project will focus only on those previously involved with criminals or having performed something illegal. One thing remains unclear, as in the case of multiple public Google projects: who can guarantee that the program won't include pictures of a general public, after it is fully operational in 2014?

Until now, the FBI relied on IAFIS, a national fingerprint database. Currently, Next Generation Identification is the status of pilot testing, the story will obviously continue with more disputes in the months to come.

11


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 10

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images