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EFF and MuckRock Need Your Help Tracking Biometric Surveillance

Posted by timothy on from the dear-sirs dept.

v3rgEz writes: Police departments are increasingly tracking your face, your fingerprints, your tattoos — and even your DNA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock are working to uncover how local agencies are tracking you and bring some much-needed transparency to the murky world of biometric surveillance through a free public records audit: Just put in some basic information about an agency near you, and they'll publicly file a request to see what vendors your city is using, how they protect your privacy, and more.

6 of 19 comments (clear)

  1. At least on one area.. by Virtucon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Fingerprints and other biometric data go always to the FBI's IAFIS and are kept for god only knows how long.

    What is included in IAFIS: Not only fingerprints, but corresponding criminal histories; mug shots; scars and tattoo photos; physical characteristics like height, weight, and hair and eye color; and aliases. The system also includes civil fingerprints, mostly of individuals who have served or are serving in the U.S. military or have been or are employed by the federal government. The fingerprints and criminal history information are submitted voluntarily by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies.

    In the age of the Patriot act, it all goes into IAFIS. Oh and sign up for the TSA Pre-Check program and guess what, you're fingerprints go there too, for at least 75 years. Oh and recent supreme court rulings have allowed DNA evidence to be collected in connection with 'serious' crimes. The definition of serious is still nebulous but I know a guy who had to give a mouth swab for a public intoxication arrest.

    There's multiple reasons why I object to this kind of data being retained except for the purposes intended and it should have a lifespan suiting the needs, or it shouldn't be collected at all. Unfortunately for all of us in the US, everybody wants to collect data on us and our government is no different. If you're convicted of a felony, yes retain the data indefinitely but shit if you get a parking ticket or non-felony you shouldn't have this crap follow you around for the rest of your life.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:At least on one area.. by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      Do you use that fingerprint thingy in your laptop/iPad/iPhone? All roads lead to Rome...

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:At least on one area.. by Virtucon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      last year a Virginia court ruled that if you use biometric locks you can be compelled to unlock the device. So no I don't use them.

      --
      Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    3. Re:At least on one area.. by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      last year a Virginia court ruled that if you use biometric locks you can be compelled to unlock the device.

      To be compelled to assist your own prosecution... We still must drink our own hemlock when the state demands it.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:At least on one area.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wonder if any researchers have ever tried to turn the IAFIS fingerprint database on itself to see how many fingerprint "matches" they get on sets already in the database. I know a while back some researchers interested in the DNA side of things did something similar, taking several DNA profiles from the system and turning them around and throwing them back at the system to see if how many false positives they would get. Allowing for damaged evidence, lab mess ups and other possible sources of error they were getting several hits in a relatively small database, that is before the FBI shut them down, threatened them, and threatened anyone else against doing any such research. People seem to have an overly rosy view of how unique biometrics are, under perfect lab circumstances with limited sample sizes matches could very well have very high accuracy. In the real world with damaged evidence, poor lab procedures, forensic "scientists" less interested in science and more interested in getting the "bad guy", huge sample sizes and incorrectly collected specimens they are far less accurate.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html

  2. Thank you EFF by buck-yar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You guys do a lot of good work.