Concerns Grow Over ICE's Flawed Facial Recognition Plan for Local Police
'Recipe for disaster': Alarm as unearthed ICE plan stokes fears of 'terrorizing' Americans
Image: Raw Story
An internal document reveals that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to equip over 1,200 local police departments with a facial recognition app that can scan faces without consent. Civil liberties groups warn this could lead to wrongful detentions and widespread surveillance of citizens.
- 01The ICE Task Force Module will match faces against a database of over 250 million records without requiring a warrant or consent.
- 02The app's use could result in U.S. citizens being mistakenly identified as deportable individuals, as evidenced by a previous wrongful arrest.
- 03Data from all scans will be stored for 15 years, raising significant privacy concerns.
- 04Local police departments participating in the 287(g) program will effectively act as ICE agents, increasing the risk of community distrust.
- 05Civil liberties advocates argue that the plan is fundamentally flawed and could lead to a 'recipe for disaster' in terms of public safety.
Advertisement
In-Article Ad
A recently obtained internal document from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outlines plans to distribute a controversial facial recognition application, the ICE Task Force Module, to over 1,200 local police departments. This app could scan individuals' faces without their consent or a warrant, matching them against a database of more than 250 million records from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department. Civil liberties organizations have raised alarms about the potential for wrongful detentions, citing past incidents where U.S. citizens were mistakenly identified as unauthorized immigrants. The app's data will be retained for 15 years, further exacerbating privacy issues. Critics, including the ACLU and the Center for Democracy & Technology, argue that this initiative could undermine community safety and trust, effectively turning local police into ICE agents. The document's shortcomings have prompted calls for legislative action to prevent the deployment of such invasive technology.
Advertisement
In-Article Ad
The deployment of this facial recognition technology could lead to increased surveillance and wrongful detentions in communities across the U.S.
Advertisement
In-Article Ad
Reader Poll
What do you think about the use of facial recognition technology by local police?
Connecting to poll...
More about ACLU
Read the original article
Visit the source for the complete story.