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FBI Developing Software To Track, Sort People By Their Tattoos (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) investigation, the FBI is working to create software with government researchers that will allow law enforcement to sort and identify people based off their tattoos. The advanced tattoo recognition technology aims to determine "affiliation to gangs, sub-cultures, religious or ritualistic beliefs, or political ideology" and decipher tattoos that "contain intelligence, messages, meaning and motivation." Such research first originated at the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2014, and used a database of prisoner's tattoos. The technology developed by NIST would "map connections between people with similarly themed tattoos or make inferences about people from their tattoos," the EFF reports. What some may view as even more unnerving is that the EFF investigation claims the researchers disregarded basic ethical government research standards, especially those relating specifically to prisoners. The obtained documents reveal NIST researchers sought permission from supervisors only after they had conducted their initial research. The EFF argues that a database that sorts citizens based on their tattoos may or may not reflect their religious or political beliefs, social affiliations, or interests.

12 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. late to the party by turkeydance · · Score: 3, Interesting

    identifying marks is old school

  2. Re:As my father who was a cop for twenty-five year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Cognitive bias, he only remembers ones that enforce his belief, and also many people have hidden tattoos.

    There is also potential that he never stopped a person without a tattoo that wasn't a criminal.

    Your dad only stopped criminals, good luck.

  3. And now for my next trick by laurencetux · · Score: 4, Interesting

    tats with UV ink (bonus if it requires certain bands within the UV range)

  4. I'm not gonna lie by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    I sort people by their tattoos all the time. If you have a cute tramp stamp on your hip, like a butterfly or a unicorn, you go to the head of the line. If you've got "Born To Raise Hell" blazoned across your back, you go to the end of the line.

    If you have a tattoo of the face of any human, living or dead, anywhere on your body, please step out of line and walk into the sea, because no matter what you think, it doesn't look like them one bit. Instead, it looks like Cliff Howard (unless it's supposed to be a tattoo of Cliff Howard, in which case it looks like a smeared Bazooka Joe).

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:I'm not gonna lie by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Cute tramp stamp" is an oxymoron.

      It's OK, I've had all my shots.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. Re:are fbi badges coprighted? by DivineKnight · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd go with a QR code that's a SQL string ala Lit'l Bobby Tables.

  6. Re: As my father who was a cop for twenty-five yea by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People don't choose to be black.

    People choose to have tattoos,

  7. Re:Fuck FBI by Hylandr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Tattoo's are the new finger prints. Thank you for making Law Enforcement's job easier by self-identifying.

    --
    ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  8. Re:I'm gonna get inked by edittard · · Score: 4, Funny

    No user serviceable parts inside.

    --
    At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
  9. Re:Fuck FBI by BradleyUffner · · Score: 3, Insightful

    By PAYING someone to put a tattoo on a part of your body that is fully visible while walking around it public, you MADE it everyone's business.

  10. Re:I'm gonna get inked by TigerPlish · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What about the Recycle symbol?

    My license already says to use my body for science, but hey, that is a cool idea!

    --
    The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
  11. Re:Not really all that mundane by fyngyrz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Law enforcement don't make decisions about guilt or innocence.

    Ideally, no. In point of fact, sad to say, they do it all the time. And most of the time, the courts go along without significant demur.

    Did you sleep through Civics 101?

    No. I have a deep legal background as well. But knowing all three of how it's supposed to work, how they say it works, and how it actually works tends to color what I say. Here, we're talking about how it's supposed to work, and how they say it works, both of which fail to correlate well with how it actually works.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.