FBI ICE Use Driver License Photos Without Owners Knowledge Or Consent

(Boston Globe) Drew Harwell July 7 2019 7:53 p.m. WASHINGTON Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned state drivers license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine scanning through hundreds of millions of Americans photos without their knowledge or consent newly released documents show. Thousands of facial-recognition requests internal documents and e-mails over the past five years obtained through public-records requests by Georgetown University researchers and provided to The Washington Post reveal that federal investigators have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure. Police have long had access to fingerprints DNA and other biometric data taken from criminal suspects. But the DMV records contain the photos of the majority of a states residents most of whom have never been charged with a crime. Neither Congress nor state legislatures have authorized the development of such a system and growing numbers of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are criticizing the technology as a dangerous pervasive and error-prone surveillance tool. Law enforcements access of state databases" particularly DMV databases is often done in the shadows with no consent" House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings D-Md. said in a statement to The Post.