FBI wants eye scans, palm prints, and tattoo mapping
The FBI is creating a massive computer database of people's physical characteristics, which is part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI is spending $1 Billion to create the biometric database.
But it's unnerving to privacy experts."It's the beginning of the surveillance society where you can be tracked anywhere, any time and all your movements, and eventually all your activities will be tracked and noted and correlated," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project. "There are real consequences to people." You don't have to be a criminal or a terrorist to be checked against the database. The FBI biometrics is far more invasive than typical
criminal background search online available to anyone from private companies. In the FBI biometric system mitakes are common. A 2006 German study looking at facial recognition in a crowded train station found successful matches could be made only 60 percent of the time during the day. But when lighting conditions worsened at night, the results shrank to a success rate of 10 to 20 percent.
Critics say people are being forced to give up too much personal information. But, in complete "double-speak," Lawrence Hornak, the co-director of the research center at West Virginia University, said it could actually enhance people's privacy. "It allows you to project your identity as being you," said Hornak. "And it allows people to avoid identity theft, things of that nature." So the government is marketing it as a "privacy enhancer." So don't worry, Big Brother Government is doing it for your own good.