Does anyone else find this scary? The FBI wants to create what CNN is calling a “massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics” designed to help the bureau better track “criminals and terrorists.”
The program will include “palm prints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes.”
The idea is to combine various pieces of biometric information to positively identify a potential suspect.
The problem, as the ACLU told CNN, is that the program is not likely to be limited to nefarious elements. The technology too easily can be used for other means, including employment background checks and the like.
“It’s the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Technology and Liberty Project.
The Washington Post reports that the program is designed to bring together information from a variety of agencies, which law enforcement says will bring “together information from a wide variety of sources and making it available to multiple agencies increases the chances to catch criminals.”
This has the Electronic Privacy Information Center a bit concerned, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the Post.
“You’re giving the federal government access to an extraordinary amount of information linked to biometric identifiers that is becoming increasingly inaccurate,” he said.
And as Steinhardt told CNN, this will affect all of us.
“This had started out being a program to track or identify criminals,” he said. “Now we’re talking about large swaths of the population — workers, volunteers in youth programs. Eventually, it’s going to be everybody.”
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Hank Kalet 