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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: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @05:56PM (3 children)
Since union jobs require legal citizens then no, illegal immigration does not hurt unions. Only certain businesses that can fly under the radar can afford to use such labor.
I'm sure it is some amount of a factor but I highly doubt it is significant and there are better solutions than violating people's privacy and committing human rights violations against children. When did "think of the children" suddenly stop mattering to conservatives? Oh right, when it became more important to PwN da LiBs and reenforce racism.
I'm sure you're tired of hearing that reasoning and automatically shut off your mind, but the truth doesn't give a shit.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday July 08 2019, @07:23PM (2 children)
But that doesn't address the issue of employers switching away from union labor. As was quoted in the LA Times article above:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @08:52PM (1 child)
The correct response would be to investigate such employers and levy some hefty fines that make sure they hire legal employees. Ramping up border police does not help as so many studies have shown.
Instead of taking the authoritarian punitive approach perhaps it would be better to realize that the US intentionally fucked up South America and should be taking a humane approach to illegal immigrants instead of a militaristic one. Human rights violations are not protected by "they're illegal MAGA!"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday July 09 2019, @01:13AM
Why would not the even more correct response be to prosecute employers and secure the border?
This open immigration issue the Demorcrats have taken up is pretty interesting in that they are adopting a hard Libertarian position on the topic. There is also the issue that in the business class, many of whom are Republicans, there has not been much desire to do things that would reduce the labor pool, being anti-union and all that, and so the employer-enforcement side doesn't get the attention it perhaps deserves. In any event, as it appears the bipartisan consensus amongst the Rockefeller Republicans ("RR") and Neoliberal Democrats ("ND") (aka friends of the 1%) is that we need an influx of migrants, I suspect that is what will shall have. The really clever part though is the marketing which is taking off even with the non-neolib types. Anyone who exhibits any economic nationalism is instantly branded a nazi, and thus RRs and NDs have convinced the new-left -- the people who now see last century liberals such as myself (anti-war, anti-offshoring, anti-authoritarian, pro-worker, pro-whoYouLoveIsYourBusiness) as the enemy -- to get on board with this policy.