DHS Seeking to Buy Access to Private Surveillance Cameras to Track Drivers

Cassius Methyl and Nick Bernabe

Despite the ongoing debate to roll back the Department of Homeland Security’s current civil liberties overreaches, the DHS is soliciting bids from corporations for access to license plate data collected by private surveillance systems. In a public statement, the Department said it’s “not seeking to build a national database or contribute data to an existing system,” rather, the DHS claims to be tapping into existing networks.

According to the Washington Post, the DHS “is seeking bids from companies that already gather the data to say how much they would charge to grant access to law enforcement officers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a DHS agency.”

Hello Biometrics: Windows 10 to Add Facial Recognition, Iris Scans and Fingerprint Reader

Source

Nicholas West

After several years of consumer complaints, Microsoft Windows 10 has been getting a lot of attention as of late for many upgrades slated for their new version of the popular operating system.

However, it appears that one feature being added to supposedly consumer-friendly applications is a suite of biometrics called Windows Hello and Windows Passport.

It's all a part of the move toward a full-fledged Smart World where YOU become the password in a matrix of online and real-world activity. 

Americans to Receive Full Biometric Treatment for all Forms of European Travel

Amanda Warren

Travel becomes truly ominous...

In a trend that isn't wholly surprising, EU Observer reports:

US citizens and other non-EU nationals who enter Europe will be asked to have their faces image-captured and fingerprints scanned upon arrivalat a half-dozen major airports. [emphasis added]

This "biometric dragnet" is the pilot test for the EU's new "smart borders" packages. The test portion will run March - September 2015, for starters. The commission originally proposed this package in 2013 but pulled it and began revising. While there is some opposition, the experiment is shortly underway.

The captures include fingerprint scans, iris scans and facial recognition scans for all forms of European travel - road, train, sea and air. 

Of course, what's usual for such programs - travelers can refuse...for now. But officials are letting travelers know through the media that it will become mandatory in time.

DARPA Spending Millions on ''RATS'' Voice Recognition Surveillance Tech

Cassius Methyl

Between 2015 and 2017, the Pentagon will have the ability to decipher human voices in surveillance audio even if background noise makes the covertly recorded conversations inaudible.

This may bring to mind the surveillance audio secretly recorded through our smartphones when they are in our pockets. On or off, we know now that our conversations are being recorded by a wide array of electronic devices, and our conversations we used to consider private are actually being stored in data collection facilities like the one in Utah aptly titled the ‘Utah Data Center’.

With this multimillion dollar technology, our seemingly private conversations can be stored and analyzed by government officials even if the background noise is too much for a normal audio recording.

Newly released documents from DARPA show that they are in the third phase of their ‘RATS’ program (Robust Automatic Transcription of Speech). This information indicates that they are going to great lengths to make sure that secretly recorded conversations can be analyzed by the government.

Nowhere To Hide As Minority Report-Style Facial Recognition Technology Spreads Across America

Dees Illustration

Michael Snyder

What is our society going to look like when our faces are being tracked literally everywhere that we go?  As part of the FBI's new Next Generation Identification System, a facial recognition database known as the Interstate Photo System will have collected 52 million of our faces by the end of 2015.  But that is only a small part of the story.  According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has been using advanced facial recognition technology for years.

In addition, as you will see below, advertising companies are starting to use Minority Report-style face scanners in their billboards and many large corporations see facial recognition technology as a tool that they can use to serve their customers better.  Someday soon it may become virtually impossible to go out in public in a major U.S. city without having your face recorded.  Is that the kind of society that we want?

Nationwide Biometric Database Goes Live

image source - FBI.gov

Nicholas West

Despite the FBI already having been sued by privacy groups amid plans for a nationwide biometric database, it has officially gone live. The Next Generation Identification system will eventually include iris scans, facial recognition, and a range of other biometric identifiers that are collated into a central database for real-time sharing at all levels of law enforcement and government agencies.

As suspected, what began as a border control initiative has now expanded to include everyone. 

As the video report below highlights, this billion-dollar program was spearheaded by Lockheed Martin, and will invariably include images of even non-suspects in one great sweeping dragnet of digital surveillance. The fact that Lockheed Martin was involved in developing the program should signal heightened concern given their integral role in drone technology. As this database is being rolled out, drones are set to take to American skies in much greater numbers by 2015. One of the latest military-grade systems can now scan 36 million faces per second, or every face in the U.S. within 10 seconds. It is a technology that has trickled down from use in war zones like Afghanistan. The merger between this  FBI database and drone technology would be the next logical step.

There simply has been too much invested in a coming Minority Report world to turn back now. Nevertheless, we at least have reached a critical mass of ideological pushback against agencies like the NSA. Could additional leaks from whistleblowers and the work of digital privacy activists help to thwart plans to enter all of us into the real-time surveillance matrix? Or will this technology expand and reach its full potential?

UK School Using Biometric Fingerprint Data to Make Sure Kids Eat ‘Healthy Diet’

Melissa Melton

The use of biometrics on children in various areas of the school setting, from swiping a finger to check out a library book or scanning a palm to purchase a lunch is sadly not new.

What is new is what a headteacher recently told parents to justify the use of fingerprint scans in the lunchroom at Redhill School in Stourbridge, England.

Via EAGNews.org:

We are aiming to have a cashless system throughout the school. The catering system is better for parents because they don’t have to provide children with lunch money every morning. From our perspective it is far more efficient as it reduces waiting times.

We will also be able to monitor what children are buying to make sure they are eating a healthy diet.

Wait. Back up a sec. Really?

World War 3 and Global Smart ID

image source

Julie Beal

The drums of war are beating, diverting our attention, as always, to the stories scripted by the mainstream media. Meanwhile, plans for the New World Order are being perfected: large-scale biomass plants, to produce anything from fuel, to paints, and plastics; the monetization of natural, human, and social capital, and an Army of Mayors to create the ‘Green’ and ‘Sustainable’ Local Communities. These eco-municipalities will be nodes in the global network, overseen by the Master Hubs, which function like the ‘vital organs’ of the vast complex adaptive system the Internet/life has become.

We must not focus solely on the war, or the shock, but what is to come after.

The Smart World Order will be run by an all-knowing quantum computer, for optimisation of the new capital (people, nature, and data) alongside the traditional products, services, and built infrastructure. Everything is to have a unique identifier, to enable the quantum algorithms and social simulations, which are required to keep the show running in what they hope will be a truly sustainable fashion. The United Nations is now calling for this ‘steady state system’, which requires an understanding of all capital stock, and all transactions. This is the oft-described transhumanist military-industrial complex - but with a purpose, an ‘ideology’ (the FULL blueprint of Agenda 21), which may sound alluring to many.

Biometrics: Taking a Bite out of Apple

Andrew Pontbriand

The wireless age has grown leaps and bounds since the turn of the new millennium. From big square cellphones, to flip phones, to the new touch screen phones that can access the Internet wherever service is available. However, communications just went 'Back to the Future'; 1984 to be exact, and was secretly given over to Big Brother.

Apple's new iPhone 5s will come in many colors, and with a brand new feature; Touch ID. Touch ID uses biometrics technology so users can scan their fingerprints to better lock their phones, and make purchases in Apple stores. For most, this seemingly harmless feature is just that; harmless. But for privacy advocates, and those who understand the direction we are heading in, our biggest fears were realized.

In the digital age, wireless technology, and biometrics are increasingly becoming one. It should be no surprise that Apple was the first to get their hands on the biometrics technology and incorporate it into its new phone.

DHS Perfecting Facial Recognition System "BOSS"

Youtube

The Department of Homeland Security's latest surveillance tool is the Biometric Optical Surveillance System, or BOSS, and consists of two cameras that are capable of taking stereoscopic images of people's faces. Facial recognition technology matches the 3-D pictures captured and compares them to images stored in the system's database, like driver's license photos.

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New iPhones Will Come with "Biometric Kit"

Activist Post

The rumors are true. The new iPhone will have biometric features.

The new operating system iOS7 for the iPhone 6 has been leaked for testing which revealed a fingerprint sensor and other biometric features. Located in a folder labeled "Biometric Kit", the fingerprint identification system is said to be used for unlocking the iPhone and for Apple products like iTunes.



Just about one year ago Apple bought fingerprint sensor technology company AuthenTec Inc for about $356 million.

The Coming National DNA Database

Michael Snyder

A national DNA database is coming.  Barack Obama has already said that he wants one.  A major Supreme Court decision last month paved the way for one.  The DNA of those that commit “serious crimes” is already being routinely collected all over the nation.  Some states (such as New Jersey) are now passing laws that will require DNA collection from those charged with committing “low level crimes”.  And a law that was passed under George W. Bush allows the federal government to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the United States. So how long will it be before we are all required to give DNA samples to the authorities?  How long will it be before DNA collection is routinely done when we take a trip to the DMV?

This may sound like science fiction to some people, but “security experts” and law enforcement personnel all over the country are now pushing for a national DNA database to be established.

New facial analysis software is capable of recognizing emotional states, identifying struggling students

image credit:
screenshot from Emotient
promotional video

Madison Ruppert

A study recently published by researchers from North Carolina State University (NCSU) reveals that video cameras outfitted with facial analysis software can recognize the emotions of students and identify struggling students.

NCSU researchers have also shown the ability to remotely control cockroaches, even on autopilot using the Microsoft Kinect.

In this case, the researchers used video cameras to monitor the faces of college students who were being tutored via computer.

FBI Sued For Access to Facial-Recognition Records

Lawsuit Seeks Transparency Before Implementation of a 'Bigger, Faster and Better' Biometrics System

Activist Post

As the FBI is rushing to build a "bigger, faster and better" biometrics database, it's also dragging its feet in releasing information related to the program's impact on the American public. In response, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a lawsuit to compel the FBI to produce records to satisfy three outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests that EFF submitted one year ago to shine light on the program and its face-recognition components.

Since early 2011, EFF has been closely following the FBI's work to build out its Next Generation Identification (NGI) biometrics database, which would replace and expand upon the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). The new program will include multiple biometric identifiers, such as iris scans, palm prints, face-recognition-ready photos, and voice data, and that information will be shared with other agencies at the local, state, federal and international levels. The face recognition component is set to launch in 2014.

Canada Being Assimilated Into a U.S. Dominated North American Security Perimeter

Dana Gabriel

Canada’s prime minister recently addressed the CFR, a globalist think tank who have been a driving force behind the push towards deeper North American integration. The U.S. and Canada are now further advancing this agenda through the Beyond the Border agreement. Both countries are increasing bilateral border transportation and infrastructure coordination.

This includes a common approach to border management, security and control. They are also integrating an information sharing system that would be used to track everyone crossing the U.S.-Canada border and entering or leaving the continent. Without much fanfare and seemingly little resistance, Canada is being assimilated into a U.S. dominated North American security perimeter.

Law enforcement accesses increasingly massive facial recognition databases with few legal standards

image credit:
AV-1/Flickr

Madison Ruppert

According to a new report, the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program isn’t all Americans have to be concerned about. Searchable facial recognition databases are growing increasingly massive and few legal safeguards are in place.

Facial recognition systems in the United States are on the rise thanks to a wide variety of initiatives including the FBI directly sharing facial recognition software with police departments while also deploying a $1 billion facial recognition system around the country.

Since facial recognition systems are now capable of scanning 36 million faces per second and can be deployed on platforms ranging from drones to mannequins to border crossings and more, some have developed anti-facial recognition measures.

Over 120 million people have already been placed in these photo databases which are used by law enforcement to identify suspects, accomplices and innocent bystanders despite the fact that they were originally billed as an attempt to prevent driver’s license fraud, according to the Washington Post.

While most probably would not object to facial recognition technology helping police find murderers, bank robbers and other criminals, the use extends far beyond that.

Law enforcement accesses increasingly massive facial recognition databases with few legal standards

image credit:
AV-1/Flickr

Madison Ruppert

According to a new report, the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance program isn’t all Americans have to be concerned about. Searchable facial recognition databases are growing increasingly massive and few legal safeguards are in place.

Facial recognition systems in the United States are on the rise thanks to a wide variety of initiatives including the FBI directly sharing facial recognition software with police departments while also deploying a $1 billion facial recognition system around the country.

Since facial recognition systems are now capable of scanning 36 million faces per second and can be deployed on platforms ranging from drones to mannequins to border crossings and more, some have developed anti-facial recognition measures.

Over 120 million people have already been placed in these photo databases which are used by law enforcement to identify suspects, accomplices and innocent bystanders despite the fact that they were originally billed as an attempt to prevent driver’s license fraud, according to the Washington Post.

While most probably would not object to facial recognition technology helping police find murderers, bank robbers and other criminals, the use extends far beyond that.

A Junk Decision on Warrantless DNA Collection

Hanni Fakhoury & Jennifer Lynch
EFF

You lost some important Fourth Amendment protection when the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Maryland v. King that the police can take a DNA sample from an arrestee without a search warrant for purposes of general law enforcement rummaging.

The court was reviewing the constitutionality of Maryland's practice of collecting DNA from all arrestees -- without a search warrant or any individualized suspicion that the DNA will lead to evidence of a crime. Maryland is not alone in this practice; 28 states and the federal government all do the same thing. Once law enforcement has a DNA sample, it's sent to a lab to extract a portion of the sample, called a DNA profile. The lab then sends that profile to an FBI-maintained database called CODIS to be compared against other profiles from genetic material left at crime scenes with the hope of solving a cold case. That's what happened to King, who was arrested for assault and, upon arrest, had his DNA collected. As the assault case worked its way through the criminal justice system, King's DNA profile ultimately linked him to an earlier, unsolved rape. King was charged and convicted of that crime and sentenced to life in prison.