National Facial Recognition System is Operational, FBI Announces
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has fully rolled out a new biometric identification system that includes facial recognition technology, Fox News reported.
The FBI, working with the Criminal Justice Information Services Division, says the Next Generation Identification System is now fully operational.
The system is designed to expand biometric identification capabilities across the country and eventually replace the FBI’s current fingerprint system. — Source
The agency announced two new services Monday that complete the database’s “operational capability.” The first, called Rap Back, allows officials to receive “ongoing status notifications” regarding the reported criminal history of people “in positions of trust, such as schoolteachers.”
The other newly deployed service is the Interstate Photo System, a facial-recognition program that will allow law-enforcement agencies, including probation and parole officers, to cross-reference photographic images with criminal databases.
Privacy groups have repeatedly deplored the FBI’s facial-recognition database as rife with troubling privacy implications. In June, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others warned that the facial-recognition program has “undergone a radical transformation” since it was last vetted for privacy concerns six years ago. The lack of oversight, they said, “raises serious privacy and civil-liberties concerns.” — Source