FBI uses controversial facial recognition to track criminals

The FBI has begun deploying a controversial facial recognition system. The agency took three years to develop it and announced on Monday that it is now fully operational.

With the system, which is called the Interstate Photo System, the American security service eventually wants to replace fingerprints. The facial recognition software would help with this by quickly looking up the identity of criminals in a database. All you need to do is enter a photo of, for example, the perpetrator of a robbery.

According to The Verge, there will eventually be 52 million faces of criminals and former criminals in the database. With every search, the system comes up with a list of fifty candidates. In 85 percent of the cases, the suspect would already be on that list, which would drastically shorten the search for the identity.

The controversial system, or IPS for short, is part of a larger package that the FBI rolled out Monday. That package also includes a service with which the security service receives status updates from Americans who now work for the government, for example, and who committed a criminal offense in the past. In this way, the US government wants to better monitor citizens who are under investigation or under surveillance.

The commissioning of the investigation system is sensitive after the revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, after which a lot of international criticism arose about the conduct of secret services. Initially, that criticism focused on American and British services, but it was also announced on Monday that New Zealand was working on the introduction of a program that would keep an eye on its own residents.