NSA Collects "Millions Of Images" Each Day For Its Facial Recognition Database

ZeroHedge

With the NSA already reigning supreme when it comes to the capture of virtually every form of instantaneous electronic communication and interchange, aka the “flow” of data, there is one final threshold that the US superspy agency needed to cross before the biggest brother of all would have full control over not only the flow of information, but its stock too: a photographic database of virtually everyone. And courtesy of not only programs like Facebook, but also its access to government photographic data, the NSA is focusing on just that. As the NYT reports, the agency is “harvesting huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs, according to top-secret documents.”

When we say “focusing”, we mean just that, at a pace that is simply unprecedented:

 

 

“The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets, the documents show.”

The NSA is not shy about its intentions:

 

 

“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information” that can help “implement precision targeting,” noted a 2010 document.

In addition to its traditionally favorite method of collecting data, namely unauthorized intercepts of emails and other electronic communications, the NSA has a cornucopia of prepared data it can parse.

 

 

State and local law enforcement agencies are relying on a wide range of databases of facial imagery, including driver’s licenses and Facebook, to identify suspects. The F.B.I. is developing what it calls its “next generation identification” project to combine its automated fingerprint identification system with facial imagery and other biometric data.

While it is the US State Department that has “what several outside experts say could be the largest facial imagery database in the federal government, storing hundreds of millions of photographs of American passport holders and foreign visa applicants”, what sets the NSA apart, aside from having unchecked access to virtually all electronic data located anywhere in the world, is its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.

read more at ZeroHedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-01/nsa-collects-millions-images-each-day-its-facial-recognition-database