Police use AI biometrics and linked databases to track people more easily

In short: Police in the US are increasingly using AI-powered biometric tools and connected databases to identify and track people, often quickly and at large scale.

What's going on

Police agencies now use biometric surveillance, which means identifying people using body details like a face, voice, or iris (the colored ring in your eye). One widely used example is facial recognition, which tries to match a photo of a person to other photos, like doing a fast reverse image search for faces.

Wired reports that Clearview AI has been used by more than 3,000 law enforcement agencies and that it built a database by scraping about 3 billion face images from public internet sources. These sources include places like social media and video sites, plus photos from records like arrests and driver’s licenses. The FBI also runs a large biometrics system called Next Generation Identification, which supports searches across images like mugshots.

The tools are not limited to faces. Systems can also use iris scans, voice recognition, palm prints, and other signals. Some mobile devices can check someone’s identity in the field in about a minute, instead of taking a person back to a station.

Wired also describes how identification can be linked to other data. After a match, police may be able to see related information like past arrests, known connections, and location records. Separate systems, sometimes called real-time crime centers, can combine camera feeds and license plate reader data so police can follow movements across many places.

What to watch

The big question is rules and oversight. Watch for court cases and new laws about when police need a warrant, which is a judge’s permission slip, before using these tools for tracking over time.

Source: Wired