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posted by janrinok on Thursday August 26 2021, @07:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the who's-looking-at-you,-kid? dept.

US government agencies plan to increase their use of facial recognition technology:

A 90-page report published by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) details how federal agencies currently use, and plan to expand their use of, facial recognition systems. Ten of 24 agencies surveyed plan to broaden their use of the technology by 2023. Ten agencies are also investing in research and development for the technology.

The report, published August 24, is the outcome of a study requested by Congress on federal agencies' use of facial recognition during fiscal year 2020. It characterizes the use of the technology as "increasingly common," with most agencies surveyed using it for cybersecurity, domestic law enforcement, or physical security. The report also asked all agencies that participated in the study about their future plans for facial recognition.

The results come after a year of public backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates against police and government use of the technology. Facial recognition has proved to be less accurate on people with darker skin, women, and younger and older people. A report from the GAO released earlier this summer also described a lack of oversight by federal law enforcement agencies that use the technology.

Eighteen of the 24 federal agencies surveyed currently use some form of facial recognition, with many agencies owning more than one system. Some federal agencies that use facial recognition fell outside the scope of this report, and no comprehensive survey on government use of the technology has been done. Most of the systems in use by those surveyed are federally owned, though six systems come from commercial vendors including Clearview AI, Vigilant Solutions, and Acuant FaceID.

The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs all plan to expand their use of facial recognition between 2020 and 2023. These 10 agencies are implementing 17 different facial recognition systems. Thirteen of those systems will be owned by the agencies, two will be owned by local law enforcement, and two agencies are using Clearview AI.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday August 26 2021, @07:39PM (7 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 26 2021, @07:39PM (#1171239) Journal

    The federal government should be looking to decrease its use of fecal recognition technology rather than increase it.

    The first step will be a consolidation of fecal recognition databases. The data will creep into unintended uses. The database samples will be shared with more and more agencies. And law enforcement will make a grab for the data.

    It is going to be quite inconvenient if the use of fecal recognition technology becomes increasingly common, according to TFA.

    What about the movements of innocent persons? Will our laws and protections keep up?

    All this fecal recognition technology could lead to a police state where all of your movements are carefully tracked by government reaching into your private life.

    --
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Tork on Thursday August 26 2021, @07:58PM (4 children)

    by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 26 2021, @07:58PM (#1171243)

    Look, there are bad people out there trying to get you. Your freedoms should be your number-two priority. I mean what if someone steals your shit, gonna shrug and make a corny joke?

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    🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 26 2021, @08:39PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 26 2021, @08:39PM (#1171254)

      Ironic that you can get arrested in the UK for making jokes.

      • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday August 26 2021, @09:36PM (2 children)

        by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 26 2021, @09:36PM (#1171259)
        I'm not familiar with this one, would anybody be interested in sharing a link (or a set of search terms?) so I could find out what this was in reference to?
        --
        🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 26 2021, @10:11PM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday August 26 2021, @10:11PM (#1171272) Journal

    And just wait until some hacker dumps the database and crapfloods the tubes!

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 2) by corey on Thursday August 26 2021, @11:41PM

    by corey (2202) on Thursday August 26 2021, @11:41PM (#1171287)

    I think it’s inevitable that this is coming. AI/NN based object and gave recognition is front and centre of the big technology companies. I’m an EE and I get weekly emails from Xilinx and Intel going on about their SoCs and FPGAs improving AI based computer vision and object recognition. That and 5G is where all the focus is right now (computing at the edge as well).