Local Law Enforcement Implementing Iris Scans as 'Another Tool for Public Safety'
With all the furor over NSA
surveillance, a lesser-known type of surveillance has been expanding
exponentially. Various law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have
begun using biometrics, such as facial recognition, in an attempt to
fight crime and terrorism. It is estimated
that 120 million facial images are stored in searchable databases
across the country. Currently, in 26 states, law enforcement authorities
are able to search these images for crime suspects, victims and
witnesses. The faces of millions of people are in searchable photo databases
that state officials initially assembled to prevent driver’s license
fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects and
accomplices. They are also being used to identify innocent bystanders in
various criminal investigations. Facial databases have expanded rapidly in recent years and generally
function with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches
are conducted for “law enforcement purposes.” [Source]
In November 2010, the NYPD began iris scans of people who were arrested. Steven Banks, attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society, said his office learned about the program in a phone call from the mayor’s criminal justice coordinator. “This is an unnecessary process,” Mr. Banks said. “It’s unauthorized by the statutes and of questionable legality at best. The statutes specifically authorize collecting fingerprints. There has been great legislative debate about the extent to which DNA evidence can be collected, and it is limited to certain types of cases. So the idea that the Police Department can forge ahead and use a totally new technology without any statutory authorization is certainly suspect.” Paul J. Browne, the NYPD’s chief spokesman, said a legal review by the department had concluded that legislative authorization was not necessary. “Our legal review determined that these are photographs and should be treated the same as mug shots, which are destroyed when arrests are sealed,” he said. [Source]
Massachusetts has a powerful tool at their disposal. Imagine a database containing billions of data entries on millions of people, including (but not limited to) their bank and telephone records, email correspondence, biometric data like face and iris scans, web habits and travel patterns. Imagine this information being packaged "to produce meaningful intelligence reports" and made accessible via a web browser from a handheld mobile or police cruiser laptop. In 2003, the Massachusetts State Police put out a request for proposals to create just such an "Information Management System" (IMS). In May 2005, they awarded a $2.2 million contract to Raytheon to build, install, troubleshoot and maintain the IMS. Welcome to policing in the age of total information awareness. Massachusetts had two of the earliest fusion centers in the country. The Commonwealth Fusion Center (CFC) was established under the supervision of the state police in 2004 without any public notice or legislative process. The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) was set up the following year, also under cover of official silence. The CFC, which soon moved from a terrorism focus to an "all hazards, all threats, all crimes" mission, is staffed by members of the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Massachusetts National Guard, the US Army Civil Support Team, the DEA, the Department of Correction, the DHS Office of Intelligence Analysis, the Geographic Information Systems Department and at least one private corporation, CSX Railroad. In addition, local police officers with security clearance work at the CFC. Under the CFC standard operating procedures, police officers attached to the CFC behave more like FBI agents than local cops. The CFC shares data with local police departments, with state police in other states, with various state agencies and through the national Information Sharing Environment (ISE) with federal and state agencies around the country. Its personnel have been granted clearance by the DHS and the FBI to access classified information. BRIC is under the supervision of the Boston police and staffed by the MBTA transit police, employees from various local police departments, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office and various business interests. A pioneer of Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR), the Boston Police Department, through BRIC, shares information with the CFC and the FBI, and has entered into information-sharing agreements with agencies as far away as Orange County, California via COPLINK, police information-sharing software designed to "generate leads" and "perform crime analysis." Massachusetts has developed other databases to aid information-sharing. [Source]
'EyePhones': A Fourth Amendment Inquiry into Mobile Iris Scanning
Christopher Rutledge Jones
University of South Carolina School of Law
2012
South Carolina Law Review, Vol. 63, No. 925, 2012
Abstract:
MORIS, or Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, is a small device that attaches to a standard iPhone and allows the user to perform mobile iris scanning, fingerprinting, and facial recognition. Developed by BI2 Technologies, this device was recently made available to law enforcement agencies in America.
This article discusses the Fourth Amendment implications arising from the use of such a device, and asks whether a reasonable expectation of privacy exists in one's irises while in public spaces. The article explores past Supreme Court Fourth Amendment jurisprudence regarding the use of technology to enhance senses, abandonment, and the plain view doctrine in an attempt to determine when mobile iris scans would and would not be allowed by the Fourth Amendment.
The article also undertakes a state-specific analysis, asking whether the South Carolina Constitution offers any additional protection against the use of mobile iris scanners. Finally, the article raises a number of concerns regarding mobile iris scanners (and MORIS in particular), and offers suggestions for addressing the concerns.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 23
Keywords: criminal procedure, Fourth Amendment, iris
JEL Classification: K14
Accepted Paper Series
LA County to collect more personal data without public notice
cironline.org – Without notice to the public, Los Angeles
County law enforcement officials are preparing to widen what personal
information they collect from people they encounter in the field and in
jail – by building a massive database of iris scans, fingerprints, mug
shots, palm prints and, potentially, voice recordings.
The new database of personal information – dubbed a multimodal biometric identification system – would augment the county's existing database of fingerprint records and create the largest law enforcement repository outside of the FBI of so-called next-generation biometric identification, according to county sheriff’s department documents.
On Sept. 15, the FBI announced that
the Next Generation Identification System was fully operational. Now
that the central infrastructure is in place, the next phase is for local
jurisdictions across the country to update their own
information-gathering systems to the FBI's standards.
When the system is up and running in L.A., any law
enforcement official working in the county, including the Los Angeles
Police Department, would collect biometric information on people who are
booked into county jails or by using mobile devices in the field.
This would occur even when people are stopped for lesser
offenses or pulled over for minor traffic violations, according to
documents obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting through a
public records request.
Officials with the sheriff’s department, which operates
the countywide system, said the biometric information would be retained
indefinitely – regardless of whether the person in question is convicted
of the crime for which he or she was arrested.
The system is expected to be fully operational in two or three years, according to the sheriff’s department.
All of this is happening without hearings or public input,
yet technology companies already are bidding to build the system,
interviews and documents show. Officials would not disclose the expected
cost of the project or which companies are bidding but said it would be
a multimillion-dollar undertaking.
The new system is being readied as the public has become
increasingly concerned about privacy invasions by the government,
corporations and Internet sources. Privacy advocates worry the public is
losing any sense of control over the widespread collection of data on
its purchases, travel habits, friendships, health, business transactions
and personal communications.
At the same time, cities and counties across the country
are facing renewed scrutiny for accepting the transfer of military
technology from the Pentagon. The national biometric database
is part of the transition of military-grade technologies and
information-gathering strategies from the Pentagon to civilian law
enforcement. During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past
decade, the U.S. military collected and stored biometric information on
millions of civilians and militants.
In 2008, President George W. Bush required the Defense, Homeland Security and Justice departments to establish common standards
for collecting and sharing biometric information like iris scans and
photos optimized for facial recognition. Law enforcement agencies have
been testing mobile systems for documenting biometric information,
including a facial recognition program uncovered in San Diego County last fall.
Authorities in California already collect DNA swabs from arrestees booked into county jails, a practice upheld
last year by the U.S. Supreme Court and this year by a federal appeals
court in California. Dozens of other states also collect DNA samples from arrestees.
Documents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
show its database will house information on up to 15 million subjects,
giving the department a major stake in the Next Generation Identification
program, a billion-dollar update to the FBI’s national fingerprint
database and the largest information technology project in the history
of the U.S. Department of Justice.
For privacy advocates, the development of the Los Angeles
biometric system without any public oversight or debate and an
indefinite data retention policy are causes for concern.
Jeramie Scott, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center,
said it’s critical for the public to be aware that this new technology
is being rolled out, because the information held by law enforcement
poses unique threats to privacy and anonymity.
“Biometric data is something you cannot change if it is compromised,” Scott said. “There are privacy and civil liberties implications that come from law enforcement having multiple ways to identify someone without their consent.”
Scott, whose organization has sued the FBI to release
information related to Next General Identification, added: “It becomes a
one-sided debate when law enforcement alone is making that decision to
use new technologies on the public.”
Hamid Khan, an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition
who studies police surveillance, said the arrival of Next Generation
Identification means Los Angeles is now a frontier in the battle for
privacy.
“Now our whole bodies are up for grabs,” Khan said.
The multimodal biometric system under development by the
sheriff’s department will collect four out of the five “inputs” used by
the Next Generation Identification program – fingerprints, mug shots,
iris scans and palm prints. Voice recordings are the fifth input.
The L.A. system is designed to transmit and receive data
to and from the FBI and the California Department of Justice, which has
its own biometric database.
Originally announced in 2008, Next Generation
Identification is being rolled out across the country this year after
pilot projects were carried out in Michigan, Maryland, Texas, Maine and
New Mexico. About 17 million facial records already were integrated into Next Generation Identification as of January.
Earlier this year, residents and city officials in Compton were outraged that Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials had experimented with a cutting-edge aerial surveillance tool known as wide-area surveillance without any prior public notice.
“A lot of people do have a problem with the eye in the sky, the Big Brother, so in order to mitigate any of those kinds of complaints, we basically kept it pretty hush-hush,” sheriff’s Sgt. Douglas Iketani told CIR earlier this year.
Sheriff’s Lt. Joshua Thai, who is in charge of
implementing the county’s new biometric database, said the department
currently is collecting only fingerprints and has used mobile devices
since 2006 to check the fingerprints of people stopped on the street
against the county’s records.
Thai said biometric information would be collected from
people only when they are arrested and booked, but the mobile devices
would be used to verify individuals’ identities in the field.
“It could be somebody gets pulled over for a traffic violation and he or she does not have a driver’s license on him or her, and the officer is just trying to identify this person,” he said.
Thai said the goal of the project is to help law
enforcement officers better identify the people they contact and avoid
wrongful arrests.
“What we’re hoping is that based on the mug shot is that that will compensate some of the biometrics to maybe better identify this person,” Thai said.
The sheriff’s department declined to release information on which companies were already bidding to install the new system.
According to federal guidelines for the storage of
biometric data in Next Generation Identification, information on an
individual with a criminal record will be kept until that person is 99
years old. Information on a person without a criminal record will be
purged when he or she turns 75.
The FBI's guidelines for keeping biometric data on
individuals, regardless of whether they have criminal records, “amounts
to an indefinite retention period,” said Peter Bibring, a senior staff
attorney with the Southern California ACLU.
If the Next Generation Identification database simply were an update to
the FBI’s existing fingerprint database, Bibring said the project
wouldn't be problematic.
However, he said the biometric database “significantly
expands the type of data law enforcement collects and creates a more
invasive system” that may encourage police officers to make more stops
in the field to gather photographs and biometric data for the new
database.
Experts say the collection and storage of biometric
information creates challenges for the legal system and personal privacy
– challenges that have not been adequately considered in the planning
and implementation of Next Generation Identification.
Bibring said the new database, if paired with facial
recognition-enabled surveillance cameras, could drastically increase law
enforcement's ability to track a person’s movements just as license-plate readers track vehicles.
“The federal government is creating an architecture that will make it easy to identify where people are and were,” Bibring said. “It threatens people's anonymity and ability to move about without being monitored.”
Scott, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said
FBI documents obtained by the center make it clear that uncertainty
lingers about who has access to the biometric data that will be stored
in the new federal database, and he has doubts regarding the security of
such information.
Dozens of Southern California law enforcement agencies
have been using mobile fingerprinting devices in the field for roughly a
decade. Gang officers routinely submit fingerprints, mug shots and
photographs of tattoos and unique scars of suspected gang members to the
statewide CalGang database, which contains information on over 130,000 individuals statewide.
The national biometric database also has come under fire from privacy advocates and civil libertarians because it is being implemented without a thorough study of its impact on privacy – which is required by federal law.
“They need to do this before any pilot programs, of which they've done two for facial recognition and iris recognition,” Scott said. “They're not meeting their legal obligations, which is now being followed up by state and local authorities.”Khan, of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said such sensitive information in the hands of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department raises further questions about oversight and information security.
“When we look at the multiple contractors and subcontractors and who will have access to this information,” he said, “the whole issue of identity theft comes to mind.”
'The eyes don't lie': Worcester County Sheriff implements iris scan at Nelson Place School to safeguard children
Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis scans the iris of Nelson Place School student Liam McGinn.
(Sam Bonacci, MassLive.com)
June 20, 2014
"The iris is ten times more identifiable than a finger print ... it is the next wave of identification. It is extraordinarily identifiable. Your iris can never be compromised," said Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis who explained the scans can be used to identify lost or kidnapped children easily. He added, "The eyes don't lie."The department has been using the iris scanning program for years among the county's seniors where thousands of adults with Alzheimer's or dementia have been scanned. The program has been used among children at fairs and community events, but for the first time the sheriff brought the program to a Worcester public school. The program is free to those who sign up and can be used to quickly identify children who are either lost or may have been abducted.
"We try to see in what ways we can improve the safety for the community and this seemed like a no-brainer. We have the technology and have been using it for seniors and why not extend it to children," said Evangelidis who has joined 1,300 other sheriff's departments implementing this technology with children. "In the end, it's another tool for public safety."
The process requires children to have two pictures taken, one of their eyes and one regular digital photo for identification purposes. Parents must sign off on the program, according to the sheriff's department, and the iris information is erased from the system once the child turns 18.
Device Raises Fear of Facial Profiling
July 13, 2011WSJ - Dozens of law-enforcement agencies from Massachusetts to Arizona are preparing to outfit their forces with controversial hand-held facial-recognition devices as soon as September, raising significant questions about privacy and civil liberties.
Police across the nation will soon be using
facial-recognition devices that easily connect to an iPhone. Civil
liberties groups have warned that the technology could infringe on
privacy rights.
With the device, which attaches to an
iPhone, an officer can snap a picture of a face from up to five feet
away, or scan a person's irises from up to six inches away, and do an
immediate search to see if there is a match with a database of people
with criminal records. The gadget also collects fingerprints.
Until
recently, this type of portable technology has mostly been limited to
military uses, for instance to identify possible insurgents in Iraq or
Afghanistan.
The device isn't yet in
police hands, and the database isn't yet complete. Still, the arrival of
the new gadgets, made by BI2 Technologies of Plymouth, Mass., is yet
another sign that futuristic facial-recognition technologies are
becoming reality after a decade of false starts.
The
rollout has raised concerns among some privacy advocates about the
potential for misuse. A fundamental question is whether or not using the
device in certain ways would constitute a "search" that requires a
warrant. Courts haven't decided the issue.
It
is generally legal for anyone with a camera, including the police, to
take pictures of people freely passing through a public space. (One
exception: Some courts have limited video surveillance of political
protests, saying it violates demonstrators' First Amendment rights.)
However, once a law-enforcement
officer stops or detains someone, a different standard might apply,
experts say. The Supreme Court has ruled that there must be "reasonable
suspicion" to force individuals to be fingerprinted. Because face- and
iris-recognition technology hasn't been put to a similar legal test, it
remains "a gray area of the law," says Orin Kerr, a law professor at
George Washington University with an expertise in search-and-seizure
law. "A warrant might be required to force someone to open their eyes."
BI2
says it has agreements with about 40 agencies to deliver roughly 1,000
of the devices, which cost $3,000 apiece. Some law-enforcement officials
believe the new gear could be an important weapon against crime.
"We are living in an age where a lot of people try to live under the radar and in the shadows and avoid law enforcement," says Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Ariz. He is equipping 75 deputies under his command with the device in the fall.
Mr.
Babeu says his deputies will start using the gadget try to identify
people they stop who aren't carrying other identification. (In Arizona,
police can arrest people not carrying valid photo ID.) Mr. Babeu says it
also will be used to verify the identity of people arrested for a
crime, potentially exposing the use of fake IDs and quickly determining a
person's criminal history.
Other police officials urge caution
in using the device, which is known as Moris, for Mobile Offender
Recognition and Information System.
Bill Johnson,
executive director at the National Association of Police
Organizations, a group of police unions and associations, says he is
concerned in particular that iris scanning, which must be done at close
range and requires special technology, could be considered a "search."
"Even technically if some law says you can do it, it is not worth it—it is just not the right thing to do," Mr. Johnson says, adding that developing guidelines for use of the technology is "a moral responsibility."
Sheriff
Joseph McDonald Jr.
of Plymouth County in Massachusetts, who tested early versions of
the device and will get a handful of them in the fall, says he plans to
tell his deputies not to use facial recognition without reasonable
suspicion.
"Two hundred years of constitutional law isn't going away," he says.
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