As It Searches for Suspects, the FBI May Be Looking at You

Since 2011, the bureau has quietly been using this system to compare new images, such as those taken from surveillance cameras, against a large set of photos to look for a match. That set of existing images is not limited to the FBI’s own database, which includes some 30 million photos. The bureau also has access to face recognition systems used by law enforcement agencies in 16 different states, and it can tap into databases from the Department of State and the Department of Defense.

Deploying face recognition is the “logical next step” in the FBI’s use of biometrics, says Anil Jain, a professor of computer science and engineering and head of the biometrics research group at Michigan State University.