FC: Criminal lineups use photos from driver's licenses

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

[For police, any database of driver's license photos is an informational 
motherlode. (If your photo isn't digitized yet, it soon will be.) Below we 
see this lode being mined for criminal lineups. Next we'll see it being 
used as a database for face recognition cameras. And so on. --Declan]

---

From: "paul music" <pmusic@mmcable.com>
To: "DeClan" <declan@well.com>
Subject: Criminal lineups use driver's license photos
Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 01:20:25 -0600

<http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E444255,00.html>http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E444255,00.html

Criminal lineups use drivers' photos
Senator wants state practice stopped as invasion of privacy
By Julia C. Martinez

Denver Post Capitol Bureau
Wednesday, March 06, 2002 -

Ever been in a criminal lineup?

Maybe you haven't, but the picture on your driver's license might have, and 
could be in the future.

Legislation to restrict law enforcement's use of face-recognition 
technology shed new light Tuesday on the practice, which surprised many 
people.

Law enforcement routinely scans the state's driver's license photographs to 
find look-alikes for criminal photo lineups.

Are you a heavy blond female, with long hair and freckles?

Maybe a 40-ish male with dark hair, mustache and spectacles?

Whatever your description, if it matches the facial characteristics - or 
even the composite - of a suspect, your photograph could be among those 
laid out alongside the photo of an alleged armed robber or murderer for a 
witness or victim to identify.

The pictures are among some 9 million in Colorado's Division of Motor 
Vehicles database available to law enforcement. Joan Vecchi, the state's 
operations manager for Driver Control, said use of license photos for 
criminal lineups has never been an issue.

But the practice shocked Sen. Ron Teck, a Grand Junction Republican who 
told the Senate Judiciary Committee he wants to put an immediate stop to it.

"No one I know had any idea this was going on," said Teck, co-sponsor of 
House Bill 1071, which restricts law enforcement's use of the Division of 
Motor Vehicles' face-recognition technology, but allows authorities to 
continue to access DMV's photos for their criminal lineups. "I was a bit 
appalled. What if my wife's picture were chosen at random. . . . What would 
the effect be on my wife?"

[...]




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------