America 2.0: State IDs and Facial Recognition

All your faces belong to us:

The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver's-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations.

The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches are conducted for "law enforcement purposes." Amid rising concern about the National Security Agency's high-tech surveillance aimed at foreigners, it is these state-level facial-recognition programs that more typically involve American citizens.

The most widely used systems were honed on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq as soldiers sought to identify insurgents. The increasingly widespread deployment of the technology in the United States has helped police find murderers, bank robbers and drug dealers, many of whom leave behind images on surveillance videos or social-media sites that can be compared against official photo databases.

But law enforcement use of such facial searches is blurring the traditional boundaries between criminal and non-criminal databases, putting images of people never arrested in what amount to perpetual digital lineups. The most advanced systems allow police to run searches from laptop computers in their patrol cars and offer access to the FBI and other federal authorities.

Such open access has caused a backlash in some of the few states where there has been a public debate. As the databases grow larger and increasingly connected across jurisdictional boundaries, critics warn that authorities are developing what amounts to a national identification system — based on the distinct geography of each human face.

...Thirty-seven states now use ­facial-recognition technology in their driver's-license registries, a Washington Post review found. At least 26 of those allow state, local or federal law enforcement agencies to search — or request searches — of photo databases in an attempt to learn the identities of people considered relevant to investigations.

Terrific!

Naturally, Indiana—my state of residence—is one of the 26 states which have facial-recognition systems and let police search or request searches. Indiana is also one of the states that has a voter ID law, so if you want to vote, you have to have a photo ID. Cool.

When I recently had to get my driver's license renewed, I wasn't allowed to wear my glasses for the photo (which isn't new), despite the fact I always wear glasses, and they were way more particular about the way my hair fell: It couldn't even touch my eyebrows. I said, "This feels like a mugshot." Said a BMV employee with a nervous chuckle, "It kind of is."