What do you guy thin about the new ID card Bill, page 1

Facial identification is the fastest growing biometric technology today. According to many industry experts, it is also the most controversial of all biometrics. Despite their lingering questions regarding the practical usefulness of facial identification technology, law enforcement and military facial identification systems have been in place for several years without arousing too much controversy. According to industry insiders, this is because these applications have proven quite successful in carrying out specific objectives and the public is often unaware of these uses. Although facial recognition technology has not been proven to be an accurate and effective way of identifying terrorists or wanted suspects, some of the proposed post-September 11 uses of the technology � such as in immigration and airport security � have been welcomed by the general public. Are we too eager to buy into a new technology without clearly evaluating its effectiveness and without weighing the potential harms involved with its use?

Before September 11, the public viewed the technology with much more skepticism than it does today. Many people remain skeptical when it comes to widespread use of the technology in areas other than public safety and security. The possibility of identity theft and privacy infringement are the most common concerns voiced by people.

Much of the skepticism may be attributed to the very visible and troubling past uses of the technology. Tampa, Florida is one such questionable application.
Viisage Technology's software matched 19 faces in the Tampa Super Bowl crowd to persons whose purported likenesses were contained in a law enforcement database, all of whom had criminal records but were not wanted by police, nor were there outstanding warrants for the individuals' arrests. Ybor City, a nearby coastal village, installed 36 of the surveillance systems. Many visitors to the city and civil libertarians expressed their utter disgust with the system, calling it a "virtual lineup." The program was likened to Big Brother and people feared that the technology would worsen racial profiling practices and would accidentally identify innocent people as criminals. These criticisms persist even though the law is pretty clear, at least so far, that visual privacy rights don't apply in public places.

In spite of the harsh criticism of the Florida systems, Virginia Beach became the second city in the U.S. to use the technology when it installed a similar facial-recognition system in November 2001 at the Oceanfront. Although Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf initially disapproved of Virginia Beach's plan to incorporate the technology for security purposes, she changed her opinion about the technology in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The public is more at ease with the idea of giving up a little privacy if it means the possibility of preventing even greater tragedies. "Possibility" is the keyword here, indeed. In actuality, the systems have yet to identify one "bad guy."

Some facial identification advocates say that the cameras have not caught any suspects because the systems have been successful in deterring terrorists and other criminals from entering the protected area. Others, like the single dissenter of the Virginia Beach decision, are more skeptical. Her research of the software led her to conclude that it was not worth giving up a sense of liberty for the marginal security benefits that these products provide.

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In spite of the harsh criticism of the Florida systems, Virginia Beach became the second city in the U.S. to use the technology when it installed a similar facial-recognition system in November 2001 at the Oceanfront. Although Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf initially disapproved of Virginia Beach's plan to incorporate the technology for security purposes, she changed her opinion about the technology in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The public is more at ease with the idea of giving up a little privacy if it means the possibility of preventing even greater tragedies. "Possibility" is the keyword here, indeed. In actuality, the systems have yet to identify one "bad guy."

Some facial identification advocates say that the cameras have not caught any suspects because the systems have been successful in deterring terrorists and other criminals from entering the protected area. Others, like the single dissenter of the Virginia Beach decision, are more skeptical. Her research of the software led her to conclude that it was not worth giving up a sense of liberty for the marginal security benefits that these products provide.

For many, privacy is the most obvious and overriding concern. One aspect that bothers many people is both the incompleteness or the over-inclusive content of the database against which individuals' likeness is being compared. Virginia Beach police have minimized this concern with an agreement stating that they will only enter pictures of runaways, wanted felons and people suffering from dementia into the database. The Visionics' CEO announced that its system, FaceIt facial recognition, captures the images of faces taken from security cameras in airports and creates a unique mathematical identifier called a "faceprint" for each face. The faceprint is compared to those already stored in the database and if it doesn't match one of a terrorist, then the subject is not stopped and there is no record of that particular faceprint going through the system. The system simply doesn't recognize or identify the face.