Back to previous page State photo-ID databases become troves for police
By Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima,
Edward Linsmier For The Washington Post The Pinellas County Sheriff's
Office in Florida has built one of the country’s most advanced
facial-recognition programs.
The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo
databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license
fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects,
accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal
investigations.
The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally
operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches
are conducted for “law enforcement purposes.” Amid rising concern
about the National Security Agency’s high-tech surveillance aimed at
foreigners, it is these state-level facial-recognition programs that
more typically involve American citizens.
The most widely used systems were honed on the battlefields of Afghanistan
and Iraq as soldiers sought to identify insurgents. The increasingly
widespread deployment of the technology in the United States has helped
police find murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers, many of whom leave
behind images on surveillance videos or social-media sites that can be
compared against official photo databases.
But law enforcement use of such facial searches is blurring the
traditional boundaries between criminal and non-criminal databases,
putting images of people never arrested in what amount to perpetual
digital lineups. The most advanced systems allow police to run searches
from laptop computers in their patrol cars and offer access to the FBI
and other federal authorities.
VIDEO: Faceprints make it hard for criminals, and non-criminals, to hide
Such open access has caused a backlash in some of the few states
where there has been a public debate. As the databases grow larger and
increasingly connected across jurisdictional boundaries, critics warn
that authorities are developing what amounts to a national identification
system — based on the distinct geography of each human face.
“Where is government going to go with that years from now?” said
Louisiana state Rep. Brett Geymann, a conservative Republican who has
fought the creation of such systems there. “Here your driver’s
license essentially becomes a national ID card.”
Facial-recognition technology is part of a new generation of biometric
tools that once were the stuff of science fiction but are increasingly
used by authorities around the nation and the world. Though not yet as
reliable as fingerprints, these technologies can help determine identity
through individual variations in irises, skin textures, vein patterns,
palm prints and a person’s gait while walking.
The Supreme Court’s approval this month of DNA collection during arrests
coincides with rising use of that technology as well, with suspects in
some cases submitting to tests that put their genetic details in official
databases, even if they are never convicted of a crime.
Facial-recognition systems are more pervasive and can be deployed
remotely, without subjects knowing that their faces have been
captured. Today’s driver’s- license databases, which also
include millions of images of people who get non-driver ID
cards to open bank accounts or board airplanes, typically were
made available for police searches with little public notice.
Thirty-seven states now use facial-recognition technology in their
driver’s-license registries, a Washington Post review found. At least
26 of those allow state, local or federal law enforcement agencies to
search — or request searches — of photo databases in an attempt to
learn the identities of people considered relevant to investigations.
“This is a tool to benefit law enforcement, not to violate your privacy
rights,” said Scott McCallum, head of the facial-recognition unit
in Pinellas County, Fla., which has built one of the nation’s most
advanced systems.
The technology produces investigative leads, not definitive
identifications. But research efforts are focused on pushing the software
to the point where it can reliably produce the names of people in the time
it takes them to walk by a video camera. This already works in controlled,
well-lit settings when the database of potential matches is relatively
small. Most experts expect those limitations to be surmounted over the
next few years.
That prospect has sparked fears that the databases authorities are
building could someday be used for monitoring political rallies, sporting
events or even busy downtown areas. Whatever the security benefits —
especially at a time when terrorism remains a serious threat — the mass
accumulation of location data on individuals could chill free speech or
the right to assemble, civil libertarians say.
“As a society, do we want to have total surveillance? Do we want to
give the government the ability to identify individuals wherever they are
. . . without any immediate probable cause?” asked Laura Donohue,
a Georgetown University law professor who has studied government facial
databases. “A police state is exactly what this turns into if everybody
who drives has to lodge their information with the police.”
A facial ‘template'
View Photo Gallery: Photo databases set up to prevent driver’s
license fraud are increasingly are used by police to identify suspects
and accomplices in criminal probes
Facial-recognition systems analyze a person’s features — such as the
shape of eyes, the curl of earlobes, the width of noses — to produce
a digital “template” that can be quickly compared with other faces
in a database.
The images must be reasonably clear, though newer software allows
technicians to sharpen blurry images, bolster faint lighting or make a
three-dimensional model of a face that can be rotated to ease comparisons
against pictures taken from odd angles.
For the state officials issuing driver’s licenses, the technology has
been effective at detecting fraud. As millions of images are compared,
the software typically reveals the identities of hundreds or thousands
of people who may have more than one driver’s license.
When searches are made for criminal investigations, typically a
photo called a “probe” is compared against existing images in
a database. The analytical software returns a selection of potential
matches, though their accuracy can vary dramatically. A probe image of a
middle-aged white man, for example, could produce a possible match with
a 20-something African American woman with similarly shaped eyes and
lips. Many systems include filters that allow searchers to specify race,
sex and a range of possible ages for a suspect.
“It’s a fine line where you need to protect the rights of the
citizens, but you also are protecting the right of citizens when you
ferret out crime,” said Anthony J. Silva, administrator of Rhode
Island’s Division of Motor Vehicles and a former town police chief.
Establishing identity, Silva said, is essential to effective police
work: “I can’t tell you how many times I was handed fraudulent
documents. And when you are on the street at 3 a.m., who do you call?”
Pennsylvania’s Justice Network, which has allowed police anywhere in
the state to compare a facial image with mug-shot databases, has become a
key investigative tool, officials said, and last month it added access
to 34 million driver’s-license photos. (Some residents have several
images, taken over years.)
A detective in Carlisle, Pa., attempting to learn the real name of
a suspect known on the street as “Buddha the Shoota” compared a
Facebook page picturing the man with the mug-shot database and got a
promising lead.
“Facebook is a great source for us,” said Detective Daniel Freedman,
who can do facial searches from his department-issued smartphone. “He
was surprised when we walked in and said, ‘How you doin’,
Buddha?’ ”
He said the suspect responded, “How you know that?” — to which
Freedman replied simply, “We’re the police.”
Safeguards and trends
There typically is little concern when facial-recognition systems
relying on criminal databases help identify suspects in narrowly targeted
investigations. But searches against images of citizens from driver’s
licenses or passports, as opposed to mug shots of prisoners, raise more
complex legal questions.
Police typically need only to assert a law enforcement purpose for
facial searches, whether they be of suspects or potential witnesses to
crimes. Civil libertarians worry that this can lead to broadly defined
identity sweeps. Already many common but technically illegal activities
— blocking a sidewalk, cycling at night without a light or walking
a dog without a leash — can trigger police stops and requests for
identification, they say.
Melina Mara
The Washington Post
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)
“The potential for abuse of this technology is such that we have to
make sure we put in place the right safeguards to prevent misuse,”
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said in a statement. “We also need to make
sure the government is as transparent as possible in order to give the
American people confidence it’s using this technology appropriately.”
A few states, including Washington, Oregon and Minnesota, have
legal barriers to police accessing facial-recognition technology in
driver’s-license registries. New Hampshire’s legislature passed a law
prohibiting motor vehicle officials from collecting any biometric data.
But the broader trend is toward more sophisticated databases with more
expansive access. The current version of the Senate’s immigration
bill would dramatically expand an electronic photo-verification system,
probably relying on access to driver’s-license registries.
Montana has a facial-recognition system to help prevent fraud in its
driver’s-license registry, but officials are still debating whether
to allow police any kind of access.
“I can see it’s an amazingly powerful tool. It has a lot of
possibilities,” said Brenda Nordlund, the administrator of the Motor
Vehicle Division there. “I don’t know if that’s what citizens expect
when they come in and get their driver’s-license pictures taken.”
There are substantial variations in how states allow police searches
of their driver’s-license databases. Some allow only licensing-agency
officials to conduct the actual searches. Others let police do searches
themselves, but only from a headquarters office. And still others
have made the technology available to almost any officer willing to
get trained.
The District of Columbia has facial-recognition technology for its
driver’s-license registry but does not permit law enforcement searches,
spokeswoman Vanessa Newton said. Virginia motor vehicle officials have run
a pilot program experimenting with facial-recognition technology but have
not made a decision on whether police will have access to such a system
if it is eventually installed, spokeswoman Sunni Brown said. Maryland
does not use such technology in its driver’s-license registry.
Police long have had access to some driver’s-license information —
including photographs — when they are investigating criminal suspects
whose names they know. But facial-recognition technology has allowed
police working from a photo of an unknown person to search for a name.
Las Vegas police, for example, called on authorities two states away in
Nebraska for help solving a homicide. Based on a tip, investigators had a
page from a social-media site featuring the image of an unknown suspect;
the tipster said the woman in the photo had lived in Nebraska. The
facial-recognition software produced a hit on a driver’s license there,
cracking open the case.
“That picture hung on our wall for a long time,” said Betty Johnson,
vehicle services administrator in Nebraska. “We are pretty darn proud
of that one.”
Who has the databases?
A single private contractor, MorphoTrust USA, which is based in a
suburban Boston office park but is owned by French industrial conglomerate
Safran, dominates the field of government facial- recognition technology
systems. Its software operates in systems for the State Department, the
FBI and the Defense Department. Most facial-recognition systems installed
in driver’s-license registries use the company’s technology, it says.
The largest facial database belongs to the State Department
and includes about 230 million searchable images, split almost
equally between foreigners who apply for visas and U.S. citizens
who hold passports. Access for police investigations, though,
is more limited than with state driver’s-license databases.
The FBI’s own facial-recognition database has about 15 million criminal
mug shots. Bureau officials are pushing to expand that by tens of millions
more by encouraging states to upload their criminal justice photos into
the national system. The FBI does not collect driver’s-license images,
but the bureau has developed access to state systems that do.
That effort began with“Project Facemask,” which compared images
of federal suspects and fugitives against photos in North Carolina’s
driver’s-license registry, helping identify a double-homicide suspect
who had changed his name and moved to that state from California. The
FBI now has agreements giving access to driver’s-license databases in
10 states for investigative purposes. Many motor vehicle officials say
they also run searches for federal agents who request them, typically
through “fusion centers” that ease the sharing of information among
state, local and federal authorities.
Depending on the importance of the case, federal agents can potentially
tap facial databases held by driver’s-license registries, state
criminal justice systems, the FBI, the State Department and the Defense
Department, which has several million searchable faces, mostly Afghans
and Iraqi men. Together these amount to an estimated 400 million facial
images in government hands, though the rules on access to each database
vary. (Often an individual is pictured in more than one database, or
even more than once in a single one.)
Federal investigators searched several facial databases in the aftermath
of the Boston Marathon bombing in April, officials said, speaking on
the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. But the
images were not clear enough to produce hits, even though both of the
alleged bombers had driver’s licenses in Massachusetts, a state that
uses facial-recognition technology.
Yet as facial databases grow and video cameras become more prevalent
and powerful, such searches will become more effective, experts say.
“More and more, what you’re going to see is criminals and other
people whose images were taken over the years are digitized, [and]
put into these databases, and incidents like Boston will be easier
to solve,” said James Albers, senior vice president for government
operations for MorphoTrust USA.
Edward Linsmier
For The Washington Post
Jake Ruberto, left, and and Scott McCallum, co-administrators of the
facial-recognition program run by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office
in Florida.
Edward Linsmier
For The Washington Post
Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Dressback has been using
facial-recognition software for more than six years.
Pinellas County
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says its facial-recognition unit
conducts 5,000 searches a month and has assisted in nearly 1,000 arrests
since 2004. A bulletin board in the office is lined with success stories:
A teenage boy who was sending lewd messages to young girls through
multiple Facebook accounts was identified, as was a suicide victim and
an alleged bank robber — whose scowling image was captured by the
branch’s surveillance camera.
In another case, a man reported a stolen computer but then noticed that
an online photo album he long had maintained was automatically uploading
new snapshots of a couple he did not recognize. When the sheriff’s
office ran a search, the pictures matched faces in both the mug-shot and
driver’s-license databases. The couple soon fingered an acquaintance
who was arrested for stealing the computer and then selling it to them.
The sheriff’s office, whose jurisdiction includes St. Petersburg
and its suburbs, built its facial-recognition system over more than a
decade, relying for most of that time on mug shots collected at prisons
and police booking centers across the state.
The system now has partnerships with the sheriff’s offices in
more than half of Florida’s counties and many other government
agencies. This year the unit added the ability to search more than 20
million driver’s-license records, bringing the number of facial images
in the database to 30 million, officials say.
The Pinellas County system also has access to 250,000 mug shots — though
not driver’s-license images — from the Northern Virginia Regional
Identification System, a joint project of Washington area jurisdictions,
including some Maryland counties.
Pinellas Deputy Jeremy Dressback, a community policing officer, uses
access from the laptop in his patrol car to keep track of the people
he encounters on a dingy country stretch notorious for prostitution,
drugs and seedy motels.
On a recent patrol, when a scruffy-looking man he did not recognize walked
up to one of the motels, Dressback stopped him on suspicion of trespassing
and asked for identification. The man did not have a driver’s license
but gave his name — James A. Shepherd, age 33, from Kentucky — and
said he was staying at the motel with his girlfriend.
Dressback pulled out a digital camera, asked permission to take a
picture and then snapped a shot. When the image did not match anyone
in the facial-recognition system, Dressback downloaded the picture to
his laptop computer and attached it to a field report on Shepherd as a
“suspicious person.”
Shepherd, who said he was a roofer returning from work, grumbled at the
intrusion, even though he had agreed to have his picture taken. “I’m
not a criminal, so there’s really no reason for me to be in a criminal
database,” Shepherd said before adding, “But I have been arrested
quite a few times.”
When his girlfriend walked by moments later — they were indeed staying
at the motel — Shepherd directed her toward their room.
“Get out of here,” he said. “You’ll be in his database in 10
seconds.”
Brook Silva-Braga contributed to this report.
The Fold/The Washington Post
The ability to identify a suspect by facial-recognition technology is
transforming law enforcement but it is also raising privacy concerns
as giant databases of driver’s-license photos are being used in these
searches.
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