Overview[]
"The . . . Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operates the Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo System (NGI-IPS) — a face recognition service that allows law enforcement agencies to search a database of over 30 million photos to support criminal investigations. NGI-IPS users include the FBI and selected state and local law enforcement agencies, which can submit search requests to help identify an unknown person using, for example, a photo from a surveillance camera. When a state or local agency submits such a photo, NGI-IPS uses an automated process to return a list of 2 to 50 possible candidate photos from the database, depending on the user's specification. As of December 2015, the FBI has agreements with 7 states to search NGI-IPS, and is working with more states to grant access."
"The 30 million photos in NGI-IPS represent about 16.9 million individuals and reflect figures as of December 2015. When the FBI implemented IAFIS in 1999, the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division began storing mugshots submitted with fingerprints in a photo database and also digitized all previously submitted hardcopy mugshots. However, until the implementation of NGI, users could only search for photos using the person's name or unique FBI number."
Sources[]
- Face Recognition Technology: FBI Should Better Ensure Privacy and Accuracy, Highlights section.