Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons. Gone are the days when states made drivers' licenses by snapping Polaroid photos and laminating them onto cards without recording copies. We're staying away from that."ĭan Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, added: "We're not interested in housing a bunch of photos of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong." "I think that would be a privacy concern. "Unless the person's a criminal, we would not have a need to have that information in the system," said Kim Del Greco, who oversees the FBI's biometrics division. That means the facial-recognition analysis must be done at the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles. But the FBI is not authorized to collect and store the photos. State and federal laws allow driver's license agencies to release records for law enforcement, and local agencies have access to North Carolina's database, too. And suddenly they're becoming the de facto law enforcement database." You need them to be identified everywhere. "Now you need them to open a bank account. Licenses "started as a permission to drive," he said. It will take at least a year to establish standards for license photos, and there's no timetable to roll out the program nationally.Ĭalabrese said Americans should be concerned about how their driver's licenses are being used. More distant possibilities include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person's gait.įBI officials have organized a panel of authorities to study how best to increase use of the software. So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. "If I can probe a hundred fugitives and get one or two, that's a home run."įacial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide. "Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all," analyst Michael Garcia said. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh. "Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.Įarlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.
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