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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, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @07:45PM (6 children)
and he doesn't like being called out, awwwwww
how many accounts you pupeteering these days?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 08 2019, @08:23PM (5 children)
Dunno, but they're also wasting a fuck ton of mod points on me today. It's amazing the way ... certain people... thing manipulating scores is going to make me think it's an unreasonable opinion that concentration camp apologists are human scum.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @08:40PM (4 children)
They aren't trying to convince you, they are trying to make it appear as if their world view has more supporters than it really does. Then again I wouldn't put it past quite a few of the prolific users around here to mod up that kind of posting.
Runaway's unhinged replies make it clear that they will take us into civil war before addressing their own failures.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @10:04PM (3 children)
You are right on part 1, not trying to convince Ikanread of anything, but wrong on part 2. People are modding Ikanread down because arguments along the lines of "swear, cuss, insult, cuss, swear, insult" -- aren't arguments, they're mere expressions of childish rage.
Also, I am not Runaway.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 08 2019, @11:54PM (2 children)
I am also not Runaway. Ikanread's "swear, cuss, insult, cuss, swear, insult" is called for, when people are defending concentration camps. People are modding him down because they are Nazi snowflakes, scared to death of "immigrants" and "liberals". Sad, really.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:50AM (1 child)
This discussion is so godwinned its ridiculous. It's douple-plus-hyperbolic to compare what's going on to gas chambers and nazis without even giving a nod to the fact that there are downsides to open borders. Here's an example of how reasoned argument might look, taken from an article written by a Canadian Anthropologist (so probably not a "nazi" *eyeroll*): https://zeroanthropology.net/2016/12/26/open-borders-global-citizenship-and-the-working-class/ [zeroanthropology.net]
The discussion centers on a book by Andrew Kipnis in which Kipnis advocates for open borders:
So clearly Kipnis is also not a nazi. You can agree to that right? Even so, Kipnis is capable of recognizing there are costs:
Counterpoint:
Rebuttal:
Notice the issue discussion in the article did not go like this:
* Open boards gooood.
- Maybe not.
* You're a nazi.
- Except it has this cost.
* YOU ARE AN INFINITY NAZI!!!!
... because that's not argument. That's just being childish and moronic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:13AM
Fucking nazi! We are going to have to facial you!