
FBI, ICE using state driver’s license photos for facial-recognition searches - cVwEq
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/07/fbi-ice-find-state-drivers-license-photos-are-gold-mine-facial-recognition-searches/
======
metaphor
This line caught my attention:

> _The FBI said its system is 86 percent accurate at finding the right person
> if a search is able to generate a list of 50 possible matches, according to
> the GAO. But the FBI has not tested its system’s accuracy under conditions
> that are closer to normal, such as when a facial search returns only a few
> possible matches._

What the GAO study[1] actually said:

> _However, we found that the tests were limited because they did not include
> all possible candidate list sizes and did not specify how often incorrect
> matches were returned. ... The FBI’s detection rate requirement for face
> recognition searches at the time stated that when the person exists in the
> database, NGI-IPS shall return a match of this person at least 85 percent of
> the time. However, we found that the FBI only tested this requirement with a
> candidate list of 50 potential matches. In these tests, 86 percent of the
> time, a match to a person in the database was correctly returned. The FBI
> had not assessed accuracy when users requested a list of 2 to 49 matches.

According to FBI, a smaller list would likely lower the accuracy of the
searches as the smaller list may not contain the likely match that would be
present in the larger list._

In other words, their acceptance test procedure was gamed from the beginning.

[1]
[https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/699489.pdf](https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/699489.pdf)

~~~
MertsA
Ugh, this is the worst part about this mess IMHO. U.S. law enforcement has
time and time again shown that they are more than willing to argue in bad
faith about statistics. This is going to turn out no different than fishing
expeditions based on partial DNA matches where the prosecution predictably
finds some 1/100,000 match after they search a database of 250,000 people and
use that as some cornerstone of "obvious guilt" and convince the jury that
there's only a 1/100,000 chance that he's innocent.

So much of forensic science is a sham, we claim as a country to uphold a
system of justice whereby you're innocent unless proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, yet so many prisoners on death row have been exonerated,
some posthumously even when there's no real incentive to look for evidence of
innocence at that point.

Who wants to bet that prosecutors are going to start using flawed facial
recognition results as if they are equivalent to a victim picking out a
suspect from a lineup of 10 people? "There was a 99% chance of a match"

~~~
Roy78
I've worked in DNA forensics/DNA databasing/LEO IT for about 10 years. I have
never heard of DNA evidence with a statistical likelihood of 1/100,000 being
presented in court. It is true that all evidentiary DNA is presented in a
statistical manner, but the statistical thresholds are far higher than 1/10x
the amount of people on earth. A professional accredited DNA forensics
laboratory would never publish or release a report with shoddy statistics like
that. If attempted it would ruin careers and shut down a lab, today in 2019.
We also work on OLD exoneration cases.

Maybe prior to the early 90's when the technology and chemistries were still
kinda crude and not every lab could afford accreditation, but definitely not
in the US in the past 10 years.

To be clear I am not arguing about the philosophy of if it's ethical to use
DNA databases or facial recognition from driver's license databases. I'm
saying comparing the use of DNA evidence to using facial recognition on a
driver's license database doesn't make sense.

------
xmichael999
I don't know too much about facial recognition technology (I work more in the
ALPR space), but I know enough to tell you that a single photo is not enough
to train the software to do anything useful. Either they were sold a dream by
a company making bogus claims, or they just don't give a shit about false
postives in the slightest and they use it as justification to randomly stop
and search people. There was an article about the UK doing this
[https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/04/uk-met-facial-
recognitio...](https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/04/uk-met-facial-recognition-
failure-rate/) I can't find the hacker news link, but its worth a read.

~~~
bko
A single picture is surprisingly effective in recognizing that person in
another photo. I've been playing around with a python wrapper on dlib's facial
recognition [0] and it's astonishing how it can identify people from just one
photo. It's not like other machine learning methods that include training a
classifier or even fine tuning a classifier. It works by encoding the persons
face to a 128 dimension vector and then using that for comparison.

The accuracy from most methods is between 99.2% - 99.8%, but the problem is
that the training samples are too easy and controlled. It's sensitive to
lighting. Google's most recent paper [1] on Facenet found 99.63% on the easy
Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) dataset, and an impressive 95.12% on the
Youtube faces dataset, presumably a much more difficult dataset.

[0]
[https://github.com/ageitgey/face_recognition](https://github.com/ageitgey/face_recognition)

[1] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.03832](https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.03832)

~~~
xmichael999
These libs assume the angle is the same, i.e. square shot of the face. Cameras
mounted up high are completely useless with these types of libs. Unless the
tech. exists to magically rerender a front face shot so you can image how it
would look from 12 - 20 feed raised up, this doesn't work.

~~~
mbrumlow
I wonder what happens if we take a square shot of a face, then use something
like the deep fakes to generate different predicted views and then feed those
in to the original system.

~~~
ars
You get Omphaloskepsis.

~~~
mbrumlow
Is this really a thing? Man, you learn something every day... I am not sure I
needed to know about this though :/

------
clay_the_ripper
Sensible regulations around what the government can do/not do in regards to
things like facial recognition tech seems like it’s becoming more and more
necessary. I am far more worried about privacy invasions/abuse by the
government than I am by private companies that seem to get all the press (ie
facebook). For the simple reason that 1) facebook can’t arrest me 2) facebook
has no incentive other than targeting me with ads 3) facebook is actually
incentivized to keep this data to themselves now that future competitors will
not be able to Hoover up as much data as facebook did.

On the other hand, governments with the power to mass surveil their citizens
has proven to be a horrible idea.

Given the choice, I’ll take the lesser of two evils which is a company that is
interested in knowing the things I buy and where I go, for the express purpose
of selling better ads. But all the press goes to “let’s break up big tech”.
I’d be much more interested in stopping the mass surveillance of citizens by
an entity that has the power to kill, imprison, subjugate and arrest, rather
than an entity that has the power to target me with ads.

~~~
pixl97
The issue here is it is not an either/or. We commonly run into joint
partnerships where the government doesn't have/maintain the data at all. The
goverment just 'buys' an answer from the private corporation and the courts ok
this behavior.

~~~
tal8d
For some dark comedy, look into NIST and their resistance to the release of
their biometric software purpose built for the FBI. The solution they have
since found is the purchase of COTS with contracts explicitly denying any kind
of ownership as a result of purchase. We can't have the taxpayers getting too
much bang for their buck!

------
aasasd
I keep seeing the press complaining of police using face recognition that “is
not accurate.” IMO yall might want to stop making that argument. Because
you're gonna one day find cameras on every lamppost, and police tracking your
every movement and saying “it's alright now because it's 100% accurate.”

------
morpheuskafka
Hmm, almost like those REAL IDs weren't such a good idea... not like civil
liberties advocates mentioned this or anything... The ID security improvements
(central issuance, anti-copying features) were fine and good, the federal
database is not.

~~~
tal8d
Oh I miss the good old days when we were fighting things like the clipper chip
and weaponized algorithms. Now it is all about the data, which is much more
difficult to rally people around. Anybody else remember the time the Office of
Personnel Management leaked all the military biometric records (plus security
clearance metadata) they fought to have stewardship over? No more vets working
under cover :) You'd think they'd have learned that they can't trust
themselves to warehouse so much high value data in one place, that single
incident will serve as a daily reminder for about 20 years. Lots of
externalities in that as well: given what would have been in my records, I
don't think I'd fare well doing business in China.

------
_iyig
Fairness of the U.S. immigration system aside, what is wrong in principle with
law enforcement using driver’s license photos to uphold and enforce the law?
When you drive on public roads, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Tinted windows which obscure the driver’s face are, to the best of my
knowledge, illegal in most of the U.S.

I would be much more concerned if law enforcement were, for example, using
these photos to profile drivers by race or using them in an otherwise illegal
manner. That doesn’t seem to be the case here.

~~~
gizmoduck
> _When you drive on public roads, you have no reasonable expectation of
> privacy._

False. Until the observer effect occurs, I - essentially - do not exist but as
a record in a database. Someone who knows me, my car, or has the ability to
ascertain who I am from identifiers on the vehicle, is able to collapse that
sense of privacy but, until that happens, I am just one of the many of the
nameless mass. In that, I have privacy and you would be hard-pressed to prove
otherwise.

> _Tinted windows which obscure the driver’s face are, to the best of my
> knowledge, illegal in most of the U.S._

False. Tinted windows which obscure the driver's view is illegal. It's
perfectly legal for you to have a high iridescent finish on the outside of
your tint, which will obstruct the outside view of the driver (in sunlight).

> _...or using them in an otherwise illegal manner._

When - in the history of ever - has law enforcement never abused the resources
afforded to them? Your credulous, at best, belief in law enforcement's use of
the system largely ignores the prevailing example given in the article - which
was that they used the system on someone who was under "suspicious
circumstance". The "suspicious circumstance" bar is so low that even a two-
dimensional being couldn't limbo under it.

Some might argue that since the agreements were made that the three-lettered
agencies would only use them for criminal investigations, that the example of
the "suspicious circumstance" that was given just now is in fact illegal.

~~~
shados
> Your credulous, at best, belief in law enforcement's use of the system
> largely ignores the prevailing example given in the article

Law enforcement will always be a compromise. There will always be some who
abuse it, and there will always be a need for it (if you want a reasonable
level of civilization anyway). It's not binary. It's not "Give up all freedom
and rights for infinite security" vs "Give up absolutely nothing for absolute
freedom" with nothing in between. The line has to be drawn, but it is
arbitrary, and a lot of people have different opinions on where it should be
drawn (rightly so! there's not an obvious place to draw it).

We certainly have to be careful not to draw it too far on one side, but that
doesn't mean it has to be completely on the other side.

Eg: I personally think it's too far to put surveillance cameras everywhere,
but I'd be ok with cameras and facial recognitions on some major roads (they
already have pictures associated with driver's licenses and various other
documents for acceptable reasons).

Yeah, it might get abused sometimes, but everything can be. Everyone for
themselves and hope for the best hasn't historically worked out so hot either.
Law enforcement being completely neutered with zero tools and powers isn't
very effective.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Law enforcement will always be a compromise.

The problem with the compromise argument is that it only ever goes one way. We
had certain law enforcement capabilities in 1965 and civilization didn't
collapse. Why would we expect it to collapse if they had exactly the same
capabilities today?

Whenever this argument is used, it's always to add new invasions. Databases
that were never needed before, facial recognition that was never needed
before. Why are they suddenly needed now, just because we can? Moving in only
one direction over time isn't balance, it's marching toward a cliff. Meanwhile
anything that does improve privacy, like encryption, is used as an excuse for
new police powers as well.

It isn't necessary for law enforcement to catch everybody. And they wont
anyway. Which is fine, because 99% of their purpose is deterring people from
committing serious crimes, which they can do well enough without any fancy new
technology.

You don't actually have to catch fugitives as long as being a fugitive ruins
your life sufficiently that hardly anybody is willing to do it.

~~~
throwaway2048
part of the issue is technology makes being a criminal more sophisticated too.

If police were limited to 1965 tech, you could see any police car coming miles
away due to radar and radio detectors.

~~~
liberte82
Good.

------
sys_64738
This is the problem with technology. In the old days the police were required
to use detective work to solve crimes with supporting evidence. Nowadays they
use brute force technology to find an alleged felon then use brute force
techniques to take them down. Usually the latter is based on probabilities.

~~~
JadeNB
> This is the problem with technology. In the old days the police were
> required to use detective work to solve crimes with supporting evidence.
> Nowadays they use brute force technology to find an alleged felon then use
> brute force techniques to take them down. Usually the latter is based on
> probabilities.

I think that there were plenty of problems with the old approaches to
policing, too. It was and remains the case that there's no need for detection
if you can manage to pin the crime on a conveniently available candidate,
whether or not that person did it; and pinning the crime on whoever you've got
is greatly assisted by brute-force techniques that have nothing to do with
technology.

------
ct520
Yeah this was a given when Arizona had to get new photos taken. We got called
in 5+ years ago (we never have to renew) for new head shots. They zoomed in
and were really particular about how our face showed up.

------
RaceWon
Imagine a USA where the citizens are no longer armed, and the 1st Amendment
has been cannibalized by the passing of various "hate speech" laws that only
serve the interests of the current elected... and then imagine trying to
redress a Government gone full Orwellian. Just sayin.

~~~
JetSpiegel
How is this particular development relevant? The US government still has
nukes, SSN, etc etc etc.

This particular reading of the 2nd Amendment seems to have been frozen in time
since the drafting of the Constitution.

~~~
RaceWon
> How is this particular development relevant?

Well God forbid it ever comes to that, but there's probably 60 Million people
with guns here, and most own more than one... so basically a gun for every
man, woman and child; its a formidable defense against tyranny. I mean it's
not like we won in Viet Nam, to name one armed conflict that didn't go our
way.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>so basically a gun for every man, woman and child; its a formidable defense
against tyranny.

No it isn't? I mean, I know it's a very common conservative fantasy, but if
the federal government comes after you, they are doing so with tanks and
helicopters, and your puny guns won't change the outcome. Vietnam is not a
good analogy. Your average American is dumb, fat and undisciplined. The Viet
Cong were none of those things.

This is aside from the fact that an armed populace only encourages the
government's law enforcement agencies to arm themselves more, and increases
tensions in every encounter because the LEO has to assume the target is armed.

~~~
dang
> Your average American is dumb, fat and undisciplined

We've asked you so many times to stop posting this and other kinds of
flamebait to HN, and you've so often ignored our requests to stop, that I
momentarily banned your account when I saw this.

On looking at your recent comment history, though, I saw that you mostly
haven't been doing this lately (that's good), so I unbanned you. Please don't
do it again, though, because if this becomes a pattern again there won't be
much slack left to cut.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
nirav72
was in Aruba recently - The US Custom clearance occurs there before your
return trip to the U.S. The CBP officer didn't even open my passport. just had
me look into a webcam and he had my info pulled up on his screen with few
seconds.

------
mutt2016
Cheap technology, thousands of AI programmer monkeys. Makes sense.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

------
imglorp
What did you think was going to happen? Did you speak out against it when it
was proposed? How would they NOT use this data available to them?

[https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/national-
id/r...](https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/national-id/real-id)

~~~
roywiggins
It was never publicly proposed. When was it proposed, and by who? It's not
been seriously debated by Congress.

~~~
sp332
I thought the point of RealID was to make state ID databases accessible to
federal agencies?

~~~
macinjosh
You are 100% correct. I remember complaining about this way back in 2005 when
RealID was passed. To my chagrin I just got my RealID driver's license as it
became mandatory in my state.

------
gizmoduck
Is there a non-GDPR-wall, non-pay-wall, non-reenable ads version of this? Even
their JS reaches through the the sands of Web Archive time and blocks viewing
the article...

~~~
gruez
[https://archive.fo/ENxjn](https://archive.fo/ENxjn)

------
2Ccltvcm
There is nothing you can do about it. You have no meaningful impact on any
government policies. Why waste time writing about this stuff if legislative
representatives do not care about your writings? Genuinely curious why people
waste time complaining about things they have zero control over.

~~~
phyzome
Kinda weird for you to say that, when right in the article:

« Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), the House Oversight Committee’s ranking Republican,
seemed particularly incensed during a hearing into the technology last month
at the use of driver’s license photos in federal facial-recognition searches
without the approval of state legislators or individual license holders. »

~~~
liberte82
Ah yes Jim Jordan, the shining beacon of a Congressman who serves the people

