ICE Used Facial Recognition to Mine State Driver’s License Databases
By Catie Edmondson
WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have mined state driver’s license databases using facial recognition technology, analyzing millions of motorists’ photos without their knowledge.
In at least three states that offer driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, ICE officials have requested to comb through state repositories of license photos, according to newly released documents. At least two of those states, Utah and Vermont, complied, searching their photos for matches, those records show. . .
The documents, obtained through public records requests by Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology and first reported on by The Washington Post, mark the first known instance of ICE using facial recognition technology to scan state driver’s license databases, including photos of legal residents and citizens.
Privacy experts like Harrison Rudolph, an associate at the center, which released the documents to The New York Times, said the records painted a new picture of a practice that should be shut down.
“This is a scandal,” Mr. Rudolph said.
“States have never passed laws authorizing ICE to dive into driver’s license databases using facial recognition to look for folks.”
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ICE uses driver's license photos for facial recognition searches: Report
by Rebecca Falconer
"The FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been using driver’s license photos for facial recognition searches without their owners' knowledge or consent, the Washington Post first reported Sunday.
Why it matters: This is the first known instance of ICE using facial recognition technology to scan state driver’s license databases, including photos of legal residents and citizens, notes the New York Times, which reviewed the details that Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology obtained via public records requests.
In Utah, Vermont, and Washington, undocumented people come out of the shadows to get drivers licenses. ICE then asks those DMVs to run face recognition searches to find and deport them."
-- Center on Privacy & Technology founding director Alvaro Bedoya tweet
. . . The NYT notes that use of such technology by law enforcement is neither new nor rare, with more than 2 dozen states enabling them to request searches against driver’s license databases.
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FOLLOW-UP > New York Times 07 July 2019
The House Homeland Security Committee, led by Representative Bennie G. Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, will hold a hearing on Wednesday grilling Department of Homeland Security officials about their use of facial recognition. The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, has pledged to investigate the use of the rapidly expanding technology in the public and private sectors.
“This technology is evolving extremely rapidly, without any, really, safeguards, whether we are talking about commercial use or government use,” Mr. Cummings said at a hearing on the issue last month.
“There are real concerns about the risks that this technology poses to our civil rights and liberties, and our right to privacy.”
