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And many of these cameras are tied into facial recognition databases, or the footage can be quite easily compared there if “authorities” are looking for somebody. But as it turns out, it isn’t just facial recognition we have to worry about.
DHS has a new recognition system called HART.
Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology system is the alarming new
identity system being put in place by the Department of Homeland
Security. DHS is retiring its old system that was based on facial recognition.
It’s being replaced with HART, a cloud-based system that holds
information about the identities of hundreds of millions of people.
The new cloud-based platform, called the Homeland Advanced
Recognition Technology System, or HART, is expected to bring more
processing power, new analytics capabilities and increased accuracy to
the department’s biometrics operations. It will also allow the agency to
look beyond the three types of biometric data it uses today—face, iris
and fingerprint—to identify people through a variety of other
characteristics, like palm prints, scars, tattoos, physical markings and
even their voices. (source)
As HART becomes more established, that old saying “you can run but
you can’t hide” is going to seem ever more true. The DHS is delighted at
how much further the new system can take them into surveilling
Americans.
And by freeing the agency from the limitations of its legacy system,
HART could also let officials grow the network of external partners with
whom they share biometric data and analytics capabilities, according to
Patrick Nemeth, director of identity operations within Homeland
Security’s Office of Biometric Identity Management. “When we get to HART, we will be better, faster, stronger,” Nemeth said in an interview with Nextgov.
“We’ll be relieved of a lot of the capacity issues that we have now …
and then going forward from there we’ll be able to add [capabilities].” (source)
The DHS wants to break free of the limitations of the old system with
their new and “improved” system. HART will use multiple pieces of
biometric data to increase identification accuracy.
Today, when an official runs a person’s face, fingerprint or iris
scans through IDENT’s massive database, the system doesn’t return a
single result. Rather, it assembles a list of dozens of potential
candidates with different levels of confidence, which a human analyst
must then look through to make a final match. The system can only handle
one modality at a time, so if agent is hypothetically trying to
identify someone using two different datapoints, they need to assess two
lists of candidates to find a single match. This isn’t a problem if the
system identifies the same person as the most likely match for both
fingerprint and face, for example, but because biometric identification
is still an imperfect science, the results are rarely so clear cut. However, the HART platform can include multiple datapoints in a
single query, meaning it will rank potential matches based on all the
information that’s available. That will not only make it easier for
agents to analyze potential matches, but it will also help the agency
overcome data quality issues that often plague biometric scans, Nemeth
said. If the face image is pristine but the fingerprint is fuzzy, for
example, the system will give the higher-quality datapoint more weight. “We’re very hopeful that it will provide better identification surety
than we can provide with any single modality today,” Nemeth said. And
palm prints, scars, tattoos and other modalities are added in the years
ahead, the system will be able to integrate those into its matching
process. (source)
The phase-two solicitation also lists DNA-matching as a potential
application of the HART system. While the department doesn’t currently
analyze DNA, officials on Wednesday announced they
would start adding DNA collected from hundreds of thousands of detained
migrants to the FBI’s criminal database. During the interview, Nemeth
said the agency is still working through the legal implications of
storing and sharing such sensitive data. It’s also unclear whether DNA
information would be housed in the HART system or a separate database,
he said. (source)
Nifty.
The DHS is operating without any type of regulation.
Currently, there’s no regulation or oversight of government agencies
collecting and using this kind of data. Civil liberty activists and some
lawmakers are alarmed by this, citing concerns about privacy and
discrimination. This hasn’t slowed down the DHS one iota, however.
Critics have taken particular issue with the government’s tangled web
of information sharing agreements, which allow data to spread far
beyond the borders of the agency that collected it. The Homeland
Security Department currently shares its biometric data and capabilities
with numerous groups, including but not limited to the Justice, Defense and State departments. In the years ahead, HART promises to strengthen those partnerships
and allow others to flourish, according to Nemeth. While today the
department limits other agencies’ access to IDENT to ensure they don’t
consume too much of its limited computing power, HART will do away with
those constraints. (source)
Mana Azarmi, the policy counsel for the Freedom, Security and
Technology Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology is one of
those people voicing concern.
A person might give information to a single agency thinking it would
be used for one specific purpose, but depending on how that information
is shared, they could potentially find themselves subjected to
unforeseen negative consequences, Azarmi said in a conversation with Nextgov. “The government gets a lot of leeway to share information,” she said.
“In this age of incredible data collection, I think we need to rethink
some of the rules that are in place and some of the practices that we’ve
allowed to flourish post-9/11. We may have overcorrected.” (source)
You think?
Many people voluntarily provide biometric data.
Many folks provide biometric data without giving it a second thought.
They cheerfully swab a cheek and send it into sites like Ancestry.com,
providing not only their DNA, but matches to many relatives who never gave permission for their DNA to be in a database. Then there are cell phones. If you have a newer phone, it’s entirely
possible that it has asked you to set up fingerprint login, facial
recognition, and even voice recognition. It isn’t a stretch of the
imagination to believe that those samples are shared with folks beyond
the device in your hand. Add to this that your device is tracking you every place you go through a wide variety of seemingly innocuous apps, and you start to get the picture.
You can’t opt-out.
Back in 2013, I wrote an article called The Great American Dragnet. At
that time, facial recognition was something that sounded like science
fiction or some kind of joke. Our drivers’ licenses were the first foray
into creating a database but even in 2013, it far exceeded that.
Another, even larger, database exists. The US State Department has a
database with 230 million searchable images. Anyone with a passport or
an immigration visa may find themselves an unwilling participant in this
database. Here’s the breakdown of who has a photo database:
The State Department has about 15 million photos of passport or visa holders
The FBI has about15 million photos of people who have been arrested or convicted of crimes
The Department of Defense has about 6 million photos, mainly of Iraqis and Afghans
Various police agencies and states have at least 210 million driver’s license photos
This invasion of privacy is just another facet of the
surveillance state, and should be no surprise considering the
information Edward Snowden just shared about the over-reaching tentacles
of the NSA into all of our communications. We are filing our identities
with the government and they can identify us at will, without any
requirement for probable cause. (source)
Some people don’t even seem to mind that their identities have been
tagged and filed by the US government. And even those of us who do mind
have no option. If you wish to drive a car or travel outside of the
country or have any kind of government ID, like it or not, you’re in the
database. Six years ago, I wrote:
The authorities that use this technology claim that the purpose of it
is to make us safer, by helping to prevent identity fraud and to
identify criminals. However, what freedom are we giving up for this
“safety” cloaked in benevolence? We are giving up the freedom of having
the most elemental form of privacy – that of being able to go about our
daily business without being watched and identified. And once you’re
identified, this connects to all sorts of other personal information
that has been compiled: your address, your driving and criminal records,
and potentially, whatever else that has been neatly filed away at your
friendly neighborhood fusion center. Think about it: You’re walking the dog and you fail to scoop the
poop – if there’s a surveillance camera in the area, it would be a
simple matter, given the technology, for you to be identified. If you
are attending a protest that might be considered “anti-government”,
don’t expect to be anonymous. A photo of the crowd could easily result
in the identification of most of the participants. Are you purchasing ammo, preparedness items, or books about a
controversial topic? Paying cash won’t buy you much in the way of
privacy – your purchase will most likely be captured on the CCTV camera
at the checkout stand, making you easily identifiable to anyone who
might wish to track these kinds of things. What if a person with access
to this technology uses it for personal, less than ethical reasons,
like stalking an attractive women he saw on the street? The potential
for abuse is mind-boggling. If you can’t leave your house without being identified, do you have
any real freedom left, or are you just a resident in a very large cage? (source)
