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ICE Used Facial Recognition to Mine State Driver's License Databases
WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have mined state driver's license databases using facial recognition technology, analyzing millions of motorists' photos without their knowledge.
In at least three states that offer driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, ICE officials have requested to comb through state repositories of license photos, according to newly released documents. At least two of those states, Utah and Vermont, complied, searching their photos for matches, those records show.
In the third state, Washington, agents authorized administrative subpoenas of the Department of Licensing to conduct a facial recognition scan of all photos of license applicants, though it was unclear whether the state carried out the searches. In Vermont, agents only had to file a paper request that was later approved by Department of Motor Vehicles employees.
The documents, obtained through public records requests by Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology and first reported on by The Washington Post, mark the first known instance of ICE using facial recognition technology to scan state driver's license databases, including photos of legal residents and citizens.
Privacy experts like Harrison Rudolph, an associate at the center, which released the documents to The New York Times, said the records painted a new picture of a practice that should be shut down.
[...] He continued: "These states have never told undocumented people that when they apply for a driver's license they are also turning over their face to ICE. That is a huge bait and switch."
The use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement is far from new or rare. Over two dozen states allow law enforcement officials to request such searches against their databases of driver's licenses, a practice that has drawn criticism from lawmakers and advocates who say that running facial recognition searches against millions of photos of unwitting, law-abiding citizens is a major privacy violation.
The F.B.I., for example, has tapped state law enforcement's troves of photos — primarily those for driver's licenses and visa applications — for nearly a decade, according to a Government Accountability Office report. The bureau has run over 390,000 searches through databases that collectively hold over 640 million photos, F.B.I. officials said.
[...] The Seattle Times reported last year that Washington State's Department of Licensing turned over undocumented immigrants' driver's license applications to ICE officials, a practice its governor, Jay Inslee, pledged to stop. And a lawsuit in Vermont filed by an activist group cited documents obtained under public records law that showed that the state Department of Motor Vehicles forwarded names, photos, car registrations and other information on migrant workers to ICE, Vermont Public Radio reported this year.
The relationship between Washington's Department of Licensing and ICE officials may prove to be particularly interesting to privacy experts because of a law the State Legislature passed in 2012 stipulating that the department could use a facial recognition matching system for driver's licenses only when authorized by a court order, something ICE did not provide.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Monday July 08 2019, @05:31PM (11 children)
A deeply offensive, and utterly false, implication. Concentration camps were places where people were worked to death when not outright slaughtered. ICE detainment centers are places where people are held temporarily, not put to hard labor but given food and shelter, and definitely not slaughtered to make lampshades. She's blocking money that would have been spent to make them more comfortable, on the hysterical basis that she can't tell the difference between temporary detention and genocide.
And she's NOT HELPING the detainees one bit by doing so.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Monday July 08 2019, @05:45PM (9 children)
Do you think I want to hear your "well this ethnic minority we rounded up without due process, crammed into overcrowded, unsafe,, inhumane, and unsanitary conditions that have led to numerous deaths aren't yet systemically killing them" bullshit?
No, I want you to die, and leave the world to decent people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @05:51PM
Runaway seems to be the useful idiot instead of the careful planted agent. His posting behavior certainly seems to maximize division but he has enough depth to make me go with the first option.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Monday July 08 2019, @05:58PM (7 children)
"well this ethnic minority we rounded up"
Wow, they're just going out "rounding up" people based on their ethnicity? Shocking, horrible!
And again, totally false. That's not what's happening at all.
No one at the border cares what ethnicity you are. What, you think they're just rounding up hispanics? Better than half the agents are hispanic themselves, dummy!
The issue is not ethnicity, it's citizenship/visa status or lack thereof. Plenty of hispanic people cross back and forth every day and they aren't detained. Some are US citizens, some have their green card, great, welcome, walk right on through! If you develop a problem there, it's certainly not based on your ethnicity.
Oh, but let me guess, you're not interested in hearing facts, right?
"overcrowded, unsafe,, inhumane, and unsanitary conditions"
Which are still much better conditions on every count than crossing the sonoran desert at the mercy of the coyotes. And the conditions would be better still, if OAC weren't blockading the money intended to pay for it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Monday July 08 2019, @06:08PM (6 children)
No, really, I don't care. You're scum.
There's no "well technically" you could possibly form that would excuse your evil.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @06:52PM (5 children)
:-) You know, the repulsiveness of your series of posts here make for excellent campaign material for Trump and the Party.
Are you a double agent? For the GOP? You sure sound like it! If you are, keep up the good work!
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 08 2019, @07:10PM (4 children)
Being called repulsive by concentration camp advocates just tells me I'm still a human being.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @07:41PM
They really are bending over backwards because they've been sold the "illegal immigrants are raping murderous bastards who drain the economy and that is why your life sucks Mr. Conservitard."
Don't sweat it, until these idiots are run off a cliff like the lemmings they are they won't understand. It is sad that the majority is dragged along by these loons, but arguing with them here will do no good. Remember, you can't argue someone out of a position they didn't rationally get themselves into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @07:43PM
Yes, I suppose clowns are human. Maybe the President can build you clowns your own solidarity camps so you can develop a deeper empathy for the enemy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @11:41PM
Or just anti-Nazi. What are you? A liberal hater, or an Allied Power?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @01:15AM
:-) Your presumptuousness and self righteousness also make great fodder for the GOP campaign. Please, continue! You're a real barrel of laughs!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @08:30PM
the jews were not slaughtered and there were no lampshades made of their skin. that was and is a psyop.