A2016 reportfrom Georgetown Law ’s Center on Privacy & Technology raised heap of eyebrow . A inquiry squad discovered that the faces of half the adults in the United States are in one of a net of law face - identification databases . How ? The databases are collections of images learn from law track record as well as official ID photographs . If you ’re an adult in the U.S. with a pass , machine driver ’s license or land - issued ID , there ’s a good probability your grimace is in one , too .
In addition , last June the Government Accountability Office discover that 16 states presently allow the FBI to search their databases to equate photograph of defendant with the stored images . That mean nearly 64 million people in the United States can be placed in a virtual lineup without their knowledge for FBI cases . The Georgetown composition found that as many as 117 million Americans could be move when you take country eccentric into consideration , all without their cognition or consent .
In a traditional lineup , police must physically pucker several people to digest side by side while an eyewitness attempts to identify which , if any , might be a somebody of interest or a suspect . Nowadays pic lineups arethe average , with eyewitness able to ID the suspect or a makeweight candidate or not make any ID at all . With the virtual approach , a facial - recognition algorithm does the work . The report ’s authors note that there are no regulations or insurance policy governing the use of this facial recognition system , nor is there a method acting to investigate how the algorithm might come up with match .
Such an unregulated system is elusive at well . For exercise , law in Florida can run search using the database without even having a reasonable suspicion to excuse it , as the Georgetown reputation points out . And while an algorithm might seem like an unbiased judge , we have to call back it ’s hoi polloi who build up algorithmic program — and people can make mistakes . Facial recognition is n’t perfect and , depending upon the algorithm ’s blueprint , could be particularly unreliable with attentiveness to certain ethnicity . This system of rules has the potential to disproportionately affect the great unwashed of those ethnicities .
Congress hold hearingsabout the FBI ’s trust upon the database in March 2017 . politician from both major party criticize the FBI and the technology in oecumenical , pointing out its limitation . Several also cautioned against the applied science turning the state into a full - blown surveillance DoS and questioned whether using facial recognition computer software could violate theFourth Amendment protectionagainst unreasonable hunt and capture .
It seems that if government agency like the FBI do not formulate a comprehensive circle of rules and policy for facial recognition , Congress may intervene and create new legislating . In the meanwhile , it ’s likely that M of Americans will unknowingly have their mental image body politic in countless lineups as a political machine in cold blood approximate how similar they are to a suspect ’s photo .
