Sex Offender Facial Recognition System

12-20-16 Iowa:

MASON CITY, Iowa – More sex offenders could soon be off of the streets thanks to a new project that will help identify them.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety is currently seeking funds that will be used to create a state-wide facial recognition system to identify sexual offenders.

Once the software is in place, it will connect with other databases and cross-reference sex offenders through photos using a biometric system.

“It’ll be a great advantage for law-enforcement because potentially we’re going to get some alerts on sex offenders in places and then I suppose it will be a better public safety basically and holding the sex offenders accountable,’ says Sheriff Kevin Pals, Cerro Gordo County Sheriff’s Department.

Mary Ingham, the Executive Director of Crisis Intervention in Mason City, says the program sounds good in theory but has its limitations.

“I think any other resources that law enforcement can use to better track registered sex offender’s is obviously great, but there’s also the downside of that where I become concerned is that then sometimes community members might not realize that the only people on the sex offender registries are the people that have been convicted of sex offenses,” says Ingham.

Sheriff Kevin Pals says their goal is to capture as many sex offenders as possible.

“To stop some of that sneakiness and actions from these people even though there they know that they’re not supposed to have a Facebook page or social media outlets, we can catch them doing something wrong,” says Pals.

As for Mary, she says she hopes the victims of sex crimes will also be taken into consideration.

“Where is the state really balanced where is the best use of our money? Is it for technology for facial recognition for a handful of sex offenders or is it to make sure that children that are sexually abused are getting the therapy that they need close to home?” ..Source.. by Stefanté Randall

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Miami-Dade Plans Facial Recognition to Search for Sex Offenders in Parks

Again we see some politician seeking recognition with a useless system and wasting taxpayer money. No reported crimes of this type, and sex offenders live with and next to children in the community, but they cannot come near a place where children may congregate. Absurd waste by elected officials.

7-8-2013 Florida:

Miami-Dade County is planning to test facial recognition technology to alert police when registered sex offenders enter public parks, its CIO says.

The surveillance project will start in the next two months with a single park in Miami-Dade, Florida, where authorities will test the ability of the analytics software to make matches between those who pass cameras and its photo bank of registered sex offenders, said the Miami-Dade County CIO, Angel Petisco. Convicted sex offenders are prohibited from approaching a range of public spaces, like churches and parks, where children are likely to be present. “If there is a match, an alert goes to the police department to find out why the [sex offenders] are close to children when they are not supposed to be,” Mr. Petisco said. “We are just trying to find a way to make the parks safe for our community and safe for our children.”

If the system works well in the test park, Mr. Petisco says his office is likely to expand the project across the larger dozen or so regional locations by the end of the year. The county has not yet determined which park will be used for the test. Mr. Petisco says the project will use facial recognition tools from International Business Machines Corp. , with which the county is already partnering for a range of law enforcement and public utility initiatives.

Mr. Petisco is also looking into whether this image recognition technology can be put to other uses, like monitoring of license plates, which would alert police when cameras capture a vehicle sought by authorities.

Privacy advocates have voiced concerns that facial recognition software allows authorities to arbitrarily track the movement of citizens who are not suspected of committing crimes. But while the county’s system will scan the faces of anyone who enters the park locations, Mr. Petisco says the tools will only retain the images of sex offenders. “At this point, we are not interested in storing information unless there’s a hit,“ Mr. Petisco said. “We picked a venue where there shouldn’t be an expectation of privacy.”

Facial recognition remains an imperfect tool. The software can be tripped up by poor lighting, or by partial images often captured by public surveillance video. Still, Mr. Petisco says that some ability to alert police to the presence of sex offenders is better than none. “Let’s say there is a 20% miss factor,“ Mr. Petisco said. “That leaves an 80% hit ratio, and that’s far better than what we have now.” ..Source.. by Joel Schectman

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Sex offender who tried to change name is sentenced

6-6-2013 Oregon:

The world has seen the last of Winter Rain Waters.

On Wednesday, the man who helped create that fake name in a failed attempt to escape his criminal past as a sex offender was sentenced in federal court in Eugene. But Michael Allen Snow wasn’t given any more time behind bars because he already has spent more than a year in jail awaiting the outcome of his case.

Instead, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken imposed a strict set of conditions on Snow, including up to a year in a residential rehabilitation center to prepare him to re-enter society. Snow, 29, will remain under Aiken’s supervision for three years, reporting to her monthly to ensure he is obeying the court-imposed restrictions.

Those include a sex offender assessment, mental health treatment, blood tests to show whether he is taking prescribed medications, registration as a sex offender, and being barred from places where children congregate. Aiken said Snow can earn the chance to have the restrictions gradually loosened by showing he can comply.

“What you need, and what will make society the safest, is structure,” Aiken told Snow.

Aiken crafted an unusual sentence to deal with an unusual case. Snow, who has past convictions for rape and sodomy, admitted helping concoct and carry out a plan with a Eugene midwife to submit false birth records in order to get a new birth certificate, driver’s license and other documents in the name of Winter Rain Waters.

Snow and midwife Willy Whitebird, the mother of Snow’s then-girlfriend, cooked up a story about how the “parents” of “Waters” were counterculture types who lived “off the grid” and did not believe in registering the birth with authorities. According to court documents, Snow thought Eugene was about the only place the plan would work because “there are a ton of hippies around here.”

As Waters, Snow wouldn’t have a criminal record and wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender, a requirement for most people convicted of sex crimes. The plan almost succeeded, but when he had his picture taken for a driver’s license as Waters, facial recognition software caught the resemblance to Snow and the plan unraveled.

The government asked for a two-year sentence, the most that prosecutors could seek under the terms of a plea agreement and federal sentencing guidelines. But because he already has served 13 months in the Lane County Jail since his arrest and because he would likely qualify for time off for good behavior, Snow probably would not have gone to prison and instead would have been sent to a “halfway” or recovery house for six months and then released.

Aiken said that by placing him under court supervision, she can better ensure not only that Snow remains law-abiding but that he also receives the treatment he needs. Snow has a form of bipolar disorder and another syndrome that causes him to experience delusions of grandeur, but both are well-controlled as long as he takes prescribed medication, Snow said.

Aiken said prisons are ill-equipped to deal with mental health problems and said society would be better served with better access to robust community mental health programs.

“We cannot use the jails as our mental health facilities,” she said.

Aiken noted that Snow was convicted of rape when he was 16 and that the victim was at least two years younger than him. He was initially sent to a juvenile facility and suffered “terrible abuse,” Aiken said.

After serving about eight years in custody, Snow was released in late 2009. About six months later he began the scheme to become Winter Rain Waters, only to be caught in early 2012.

Whitebird, the midwife, pleaded guilty late last year to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and was sentenced to five years of probation and 250 hours of community service. She also had to give up her nursing license. ..Source.. by Greg Bolt

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Move to digitize Iowa sex offender mug shots raises privacy concerns

12-16-2012 Iowa:

All of Iowa's more than 5,600 registered sex offenders could soon have their mug shots digitized and saved to a database that law enforcement officials could match to photos from an array of other sources, such as security cameras and Facebook, with a few mouse clicks.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety is in the middle of a program to equip every Iowa sheriff’s department with an electronic signature pad, laptop computer and digital camera that can support the high-resolution data to feed through facial recognition software.

“Biometrics is really coming up to play a big part in law enforcement and investigations and things like that,” said Terry Cowman, special agent in charge of the state’s sex offender registry program. “What’s interesting about facial rec is, it is kind of the future of where we’re at.”

He has about $110,000 to pay for the hardware through a federal grant. Now he’s seeking another $180,000 to pay for the software and training that would allow the state to digitize roughly 10,000 photos, but he won’t receive word on that grant until spring.

The move to digitize and analyze faces of sex offenders has some concerned about what comes next.

“You always start with sex offenders because nobody is going to stick up for sex offenders,” said Rep. Chip Baltimore, R-Boone, a lawyer who chairs the House Judiciary committee. “The question is where it goes from there.”

PRIVACY CONCERNS

Facial recognition software is a key part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s $1 billion Next Generation Identification program and the reason Facebook can suggest a photo ID on a mobile phone upload.

More than a decade ago, the city of Tampa, Fla., piloted a facial recognition system that scanned faces of people in crowds and compared them to photos of criminals in their database. The program ran for about two years and was scrapped in 2003.

“Sex offenders don’t have the same rights as other people because they already have been convicted of a crime,” said Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Dealing with convicts makes it easier for government to get around civil liberties concerns than if it, say, wanted to run a recognition scan on everyone who had their picture taken for a driver’s license or other form of state photo identification, Stone said.

Chris Sumner, co-founder and secretary of the U.K.-based Online Privacy Foundation, focuses most of his work on the type of data people voluntarily share online with companies through applications such as Facebook and Twitter and how that data is repackaged and sold.

But, he said, some of the concerns are the same.

“There’s this gradual reduction of this right to privacy that doesn’t seem to be debated,” he said. “We need to have an informed discussion on what is possible. People on the street just don’t have the knowledge.”

WHAT IS POSSIBLE?

Two weeks ago, Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson and Drew Collins traveled to Des Moines for a state sheriff’s association meeting. Drew is the father of Elizabeth, an 8-year-old girl whose body was discovered in a wooded area in rural Bremer County on Dec. 5, months after she and her cousin, 10-year-old Lyric Cook-Morrissey, disappeared after going on a bike ride in Evansdale. Lyric’s body was found in the same area.

Drew had a printout all the sex offenders in the state who have not kept authorities up to date on their whereabouts as the law requires.

“He wanted to share that information with them,” Thompson said. “It was something that we hoped they could pass around and share with their officers.”

Thompson says he can see the advantage of facial recognition tools, but he doesn’t think it would have helped in the case of the missing cousins.

“We had hours and hours of surveillance tape,” Thompson said. “Nothing.”

Scott County Sheriff Detective Peter Bawden oversees that county’s sexual offender registry. On any given day, he has 600 or so people on the list. He said more and more of his time is now devoted to making sure registered sex offenders aren’t contacting people through social media applications. He recently caught one, he said, who was using a fake name to reach out to a former victim through Facebook.

He sees facial recognition as the next step, and an appropriate one. He thinks the privacy concerns are overblown.

“I’m just speaking for myself and not on the behalf of the department,” Bawden said. “These are the same things they probably heard back when fingerprints came out, it’s the same arguments I remember hearing in the '90s when DNA started coming out; it’s the same argument now.”

Cowen acknowledges that if the department is able to get the software for the sex offender program, it’s quite possible it would grow.

“We could not say this couldn’t be moved to mug shots or other information databases because that could only enhance the tool for detectives,” he wrote in an email response to a question on privacy concerns. “This software would not be used for general use or civil priorities but only to give detectives an additional tool to use to further investigations. The information gleaned from a template match could be used to further leads in many types of criminal cases.” ..Source.. by MIKE WISER

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Former nurse in Springfield pleads guilty to creating false documents She admits she drafted them to help a wanted sex offender apply for new identity cards

10-17-2012 Oregon:

A former hospital nurse pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to commit mail fraud, admitting that she created fake prenatal and birth records to help a wanted sex offender obtain a new identity and Social Security card.

Willy Gibson Whitebird also admitted to federal judge Michael Hogan that she’d lied under oath in Lane County Circuit Court to help fugitive Michael Allen Snow, 27, obtain a delayed birth certificate in the name of Winter Rain Waters. Her sentencing is set for Jan. 8.

Whitebird, 55, worked as a nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield until June. A hospital spokeswoman declined to say why Whitebird, who was placed on leave after her April federal indictment, is no longer an employee.

Whitebird, who had also been a self-employed midwife, falsely told a circuit court judge in February 2011 that she’d provided prenatal care for “Waters” and attended his birth in a converted school bus on “The Rainbow Farm” in 1987. Whitebird presented bogus, backdated records of such care, and falsely asserted that Snow’s parents were “Misty Summer Rain” and “William Waters” and that the couple never registered his birth.

Her false testimony and records helped persuade Lane County Circuit Judge Mustafa Kasubhai to order the state to issue a delayed birth certificate for “Waters.”

Snow used that document to obtain a Social Security card and an official Oregon identification card as Winter Rain Waters. But the ruse was thwarted by facial recognition software running on the state motor vehicles department database. Used to detect suspected identity theft or Social Security fraud, the software found a likely match between “Waters’” new ID card image and Snow’s old driver’s license photo. State officials alerted the federal Inspector General’s Office, which began an investigation.

That probe quickly revealed that “Waters” was actually Snow, who served more than eight years in state prison after being convicted of forcibly raping a fellow teen at age 15, according to a federal agent’s February sworn statement to get a search warrant in the fraud case. While Snow was trying to get documents as Winter Rain Waters, a warrant was out for Snow’s arrest for failing to register as a sex offender, the agent’s affidavit said.

It also revealed Whitebird’s likely incentive to help Snow get a fresh start under a new name: He was reportedly the father of her twin grandchildren.

He pleaded not guilty in May to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, mail fraud, making a false statement to a government agency, and two counts of failure to register as a sex offender. His case is set for trial Nov. 28.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Helen Cooper told Hogan that the government will seek no more than a 30-day jail sentence and three years of probation for Whitebird, citing her acceptance of responsibility and previous good record. Before entering her guilty plea, however, Whitebird acknowledged that Hogan could impose a longer sentence, and that the maximum possible penalty for mail fraud conspiracy is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The government will also seek Whitebird’s assurance that all falsified documents have been surrendered, Cooper said.

Whitebird also acknowledged Hogan’s warning that her guilty plea could end her “ability to engage in certain occupations.”

Oregon State Nursing Board spokeswoman Barbara Holtry said Whitebird is still a licensed Oregon nurse, but that her status could change if the agency conducts a disciplinary hearing on her criminal conduct. That is not likely to occur until after Whitebird’s sentencing, she said. ..Source.. by Karen McCowan

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Facial Recognition: Beating Surveillance Cameras

1-12-2012 Global:

Big Brother is watching you, though probably not in the ways most of us would imagine.

Sure, the cameras at banks or airport checkpoints may be on the lookout for robbers or would-be terrorists, using facial recognition technology to match pictures to existing ones. But private enterprise is busy as well.

If you tag a picture of yourself on Facebook or Google's Picasa, that image can be used to identify you in other pictures.

Adam Harvey says the technology is intruding on your right to privacy, and he's figured out some low-tech ways to outsmart them.

"Don't ask me about privacy, because I tend to talk too long about it," he said. "When we live in an environment where we're constantly being monitored, we cherish the right just to talk to someone face-to-face."

Harvey, a New York web designer, started a project called CV Dazzle when he was getting his master's degree at New York University in 2010. His objective: to show people how to hide in plain sight.

If you look at the images he generated, you'll get a sense of what he has in mind. Face-recognition software looks for key points on one's face, such as eyes, nose, and mouth, and where they meet and the distance between them. So he suggests simple ways to block them.

A spike of hair proved to be effective if it covered the area where the eyes, forehead and nose come together. Computer-vision software often looks for that spot, said Harvey, and will not detect a face without it.

Similarly, he said, a bit of face paint will confuse a computer. Harvey said he found that black geometric shapes, painted on one's cheeks, would prevent a machine from registering that it was looking at a face.

Of course, these are not things that most people would do to their faces -- but Harvey joked that in New York, where he lives, people with eccentric hairdos or makeup wouldn't stand out much. And they're more effective than hoodies or baseball caps pulled over one's face. In those cases the software is unnecessary; people simply look as if they have something to hide.

Of course, the issue of privacy is complicated, especially when you're talking about privacy in a public place. Richard Falkenrath, a principal with the Chertoff Group of security consultants who was an advisor on homeland security in the Bush administration, said facial recognition is not widely used in the United States except at places like security checkpoints. He looked at Adam Harvey's work and said it would be most useful in social media, not as a way to get around government security.

"There are clearly certain activities for which you have no reasonable expectation of privacy," Falkenrath said. "When you take out the garbage, people see you. When you walk down the street, people can take pictures of you."

Would work like Harvey's be helpful to criminals -- the very people who ought not to be able to hide? Falkenrath said he didn't think so, and Harvey said he did not intend it that way.

"This project is not about dodging the law, it's about adapting to living in surveillance societies," he said.

"In the next decade we'll have to figure out how to balance security with privacy and move on," Harvey said. "The research I'm doing is aimed at integrating fashion, privacy and technology to make real products that people can use." ..Source.. by NED POTTER

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New Pilot Program to Nab Sex Offenders Being Tested in Phoenix Schools

Obviously these alleged geniuses have never read the reality of face scanning: "Airport Face Scanner Failed" (The system failed to correctly identify airport employees 53 percent of the time) Wired News. Then the cost WOW!!!!!!!!!!

9-3-2010 Arizona:

We are a nation focused on eradicating sex offenders from the lives of our children. They are in and near our schools, at the local parks, living next door, and even in some of our churches.

The Phoenix schools, as well as their teachers, administrators and parents, want to protect their children from sexual attacks and abductions. Together with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office, the Phoenix schools have devised a pilot project to apprehend sex offenders and alleged abductors before they can do harm.

The plan of the Phoenix schools is simple. Two cameras are now located outside the school office of the Royal Palm Middle School, scanning the faces of people who enter. Each camera uses face-scanning technology, designed to compare the scanned faces with the state and national databases of registered sex offenders, missing children, and alleged abductors. If a match is found, a police officer is dispatched to the Phoenix school.

Law enforcement and the Phoenix schools are hopeful that the project succeeds, knowing that anything that protects the children is worth any cost and inconvenience.

Civil libertarians, however, are concerned with privacy more than protecting the children from attack or abduction. They are vocally opposing the Phoenix schools project, citing the potential issues of privacy violations.

Others say the technology is unproven and not reliable. According to Chengjun Liu, professor and researcher of facial recognition technology at New Jersey Institute of Technology, the technology is very promising but currently is not foolproof. Many variables, such as lighting, shadows and facial expression, can affect its accuracy.

Ken Kaplan, engineering director at Hummingbird’s Phoenix location and who provided the equipment and software for the Phoenix schools pilot, disagrees. He is confident that facial scanning technology can be used to accurately compare scanned faces with mug shots and snapshots stored in the databases. He believes that false positives are rare situations.

Making Matches
For nearly two years, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has worked with Phoenix-based Hummingbird Defense Systems, which donated $350,000 worth of equipment to the office for pilot projects. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his team tested the company's facial recognition technology to verify identities of suspects booked into county jails, and for various other programs designed to monitor inmates, according to Lt. Tim Campbell, Sheriff's Office spokesman. More recently, the Sheriff's Office and Hummingbird's CEO concocted the idea of using the technology in schools. Source: A Face in the Crowd.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for instituting chain gangs and issuing pink underwear to county inmates, believes that if it only catches one sex offender at the Phoenix school, then it is worth it. Protecting children from attack and abduction – or worse – takes priority.

If the pilot project is successful, both law enforcement and Phoenix schools educators hope to expand it. The Phoenix schools want the technology in all of their schools. According to Arizona Schools Superintendent Tom Horne, the Phoenix schools may very well get their wish. If the project succeeds, he plans to seek funding for cameras for all schools within the state. ..Source.. by This information on Phoenix schools is brought to you by www.schoolsk-12.com

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NC- FBI delves into DMV photos in search for fugitives

Photo lineup with a computer replacing the victim? Are other rights violated, or could this taint actual witness identification?

10-13-2009 North Carolina:

RALEIGH, N.C. – In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.

The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.

"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.

In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.

A week later, after corroborating Corrales' identity, agents arrested him in High Point, southwest of Greensboro, where they believe he had built a new life under the assumed name. Corrales is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles later this month.

"Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all," analyst Michael Garcia said. "If I can probe a hundred fugitives and get one or two, that's a home run."

Facial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide.

So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. More distant possibilities include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person's gait.

FBI officials have organized a panel of authorities to study how best to increase use of the software. It will take at least a year to establish standards for license photos, and there's no timetable to roll out the program nationally.

Calabrese said Americans should be concerned about how their driver's licenses are being used.

Licenses "started as a permission to drive," he said. "Now you need them to open a bank account. You need them to be identified everywhere. And suddenly they're becoming the de facto law enforcement database."

State and federal laws allow driver's license agencies to release records for law enforcement, and local agencies have access to North Carolina's database, too. But the FBI is not authorized to collect and store the photos. That means the facial-recognition analysis must be done at the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.

"Unless the person's a criminal, we would not have a need to have that information in the system," said Kim Del Greco, who oversees the FBI's biometrics division. "I think that would be a privacy concern. We're staying away from that."

Dan Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, added: "We're not interested in housing a bunch of photos of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong."

Gone are the days when states made drivers' licenses by snapping Polaroid photos and laminating them onto cards without recording copies.

Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons.

North Carolina's lab scans an image and, within 10 seconds, compares the likeness with other photos based on an algorithm of factors such as the width of a chin or the structure of cheekbones. The search returns several hundred photos ranked by the similarities.

"We'll get some close hits, and we'll get some hits that are right on," said Stephen Lamm, who oversees the DMV lab.

The technology allowed the DMV to quickly highlight 28 different photos of one man who was apparently using many identities. It also identified one person who, as part of a sex change, came in with plucked eyebrows, long flowing hair and a new name — but the same radiant smile.

The system is not always right. Investigators used one DMV photo of an Associated Press reporter to search for a second DMV photo, but the system first returned dozens of other people, including a North Carolina terrorism suspect who had some similar facial features.

The images from the reporter and terror suspect scored a likeness of 72 percent, below the mid-80s that officials consider a solid hit.

Facial-recognition experts believe the technology has improved drastically since 2002, when extremely high failure rates led authorities to scrap a program planned for the entrances to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Lamm said investigators reviewing the galleries can almost always find the right photo, using a combination of the computer and the naked eye.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, questioned whether the facial-recognition systems that were pushed after the Sept. 11 attacks are accurate or even worthwhile.

"We don't have good photos of terrorists," Rotenberg said. "Most of the facial-recognition systems today are built on state DMV records because that's where the good photos are. It's not where the terrorists are." ..Source.. by MIKE BAKER

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IN- Driver's license photo? Careful with that smile

12-10-2008 Indiana:

The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles is restricting glasses, hats, scarves — and even smiles — in driver’s license photographs.

The new rules imposed last month are needed so that facial recognition software can spot fraudulent license applications, BMV officials told The Times of Northwest Indiana.

The software compares applicants’ new photographs with old photographs on file to protect them from identity fraud, said BMV commissioner Ron Stiver.

“We take very seriously our responsibility to help protect the personal identity of Hoosiers, and the employment of this innovative technology is yet another important step forward in doing just that,” Stiver said.

The new technology represents an advancement of what the BMV already was doing, agency spokesman Dennis Rosebrough said. BMV employees always have looked at the old photo of a person to see if it looked like the person seeking a new license.

Indiana is one of about 20 states using the facial recognition technology, he said, and other states have similar restrictions on driver’s license photographs.


“We believe it’s our responsibility to assure all Hoosiers the credentials we issue ... are as accurate as possible,” Rosebrough said.

BMV officials want driver’s license photographs to accurately show people’s permanent facial features, Rosebrough said. That means glasses need to be removed. And if a person has hair hanging their face, it should be swept aside. Smiling can distort facial features measured by the software, Rosebrough said, so that is also restricted.

BMV customers can petition to leave on headdresses in photographs for religious reasons and can petition to have a non-photo license or identification card, Rosebrough said.

He said there have been few problems with implementing the new rules.

“If people understand why we’re doing something, our experience is the great, great majority of our customers say, ‘Fine, we get it,”’ Rosebrough said. ..News Source.. by CourierPress

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Crime-fighting arsenal increases with new face recognition system

12-16-2007 North Carolina

Technology advances every year, and local law enforcement agencies are trying to take advantage of it to deter and solve crimes.
Last week, Jim Sidler, director of marketing for Securus Technologies, presented the biometric face recognition system to members of the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff Sam Page said he is seeking ways to modernize a new jail. Though it will be two years before the building is complete, Page has started to look at new technology.

Sidler said the current system of mug shots and fingerprints have flaws. The wrong criminal can be released from large prisons when their first mugshot looks nothing like their preset physical appearance. Fingerprints have a large range of fallibility, and accurate prints cannot be taken of laborers whose prints have been rubbed off after years of heavy work.

Identity is difficult for officers in the field, too. A deputy may arrest someone, but if the person produces no documents proving who he or she is, there's no way of proving if the arrestee is a common resident or a wanted criminal.

"One of the worst feelings for a law enforcement officer is not knowing who you have in the back of the car," Sidler said. "Are they a drug dealer or serial killer?"

A biometric system takes a three-dimensional picture of a person's face and compares faces using 20,000 points of reference. "The more points of match we have, the more accurate the system is," Sidler said.

The precise facial measurements give the system 99.2 percent accuracy. Sidler said an image of a new arrestee can be compared to a database of other mug shots nationwide. If the same face has been linked to several aliases, the system displays that, too.

Images can be taken in the field, just after an arrest or when an inmate is brought to a prison. The system can also track visitors. Sidler said several people were caught carrying messages between imprisoned gang members. Some were even identified as being wanted on old charges.

"I think this system would better protect the public," Page said. "I think it's a direction we want to go in."

There are drawbacks. The system's national database is still being built, so record access would be limited. Sidler said each camera runs about $13,000. Page said Rockingham County would probably start off with two cameras to use when booking arrestees.

"We could look at grants to pay for the system," Page said. "But it all depends on the cost of the system."

Old ways of monitoring criminals are quickly being replaced with more accurate methods. More detailed methods were used first by national agencies, but now even Rockingham County boasts highly developed crime-fighting tools.

The Eden Police Department has its own collection of technology. It is the only agency in the county with a computer lab. Detective William East analyzes computers belonging to people charged with possessing child pornography or committing identity theft.

"Whether you know it or not, any time a computer is started it makes a record," East said. If a computer is confiscated for evidence, investigators cannot alter it. East uses a device that analyzes hard drives and can rebuild information that was deleted without altering anything.

"The software recreates data that's been deleted, so any photo or graph you've looked at, the computer stores," East said.

East described a case of a man facing child-porn charges. He pleaded innocent until Eden police confiscated his computer. Though the man normally used a program that completely hid the sites and pictures he accessed, it malfunctioned long enough to leave three photos on the hard drive. When the man learned police had reconstructed incriminating evidence, he changed his plea to guilty.

While the computer lab has useful software, there is one new piece of software on East's wishlist.

"It tracks IP (internet protocol) addresses," he said. "I'm hoping to get software that reads IP addresses that have been to a certain Web site and then allows me to track the number to the house. Now, we're having to call Time Warner and ask for information."

Eden is also installing mobile data terminals for police cars and hopes to soon have one for each officer. Capt. Greg Light said MDTs save time in the field.

"Officers can run tag numbers and license numbers from their car," Light said. " The system runs on a wireless system they can pick up pretty much anywhere."

The Reidsville Police Department installed surveillance cameras downtown but will soon install portable cameras that can be moved to areas residents feel have regular drug traffic.

Chief Edd Hunt said the downtown cameras have already made a big difference, and he is excited to see what surveillance elsewhere will change.

"We're very proud of what it's done so far, and we believe that's worked," Hunt said.

Police cars will soon have mobile reporting units, as well as new in-car cameras that automatically download to the department's database when an officer parks in the department's wireless Internet hotspot.

"It'll be automatic so the officers don't have to spend time putting the video on a disk and bringing it in," Hunt said.

A new barcoding system will minimize how much police handle crime-scene evidence. Each piece will be given a barcode, and inventory is done with a lower risk of altering pieces. A digital crash reporting system will cut paperwork for officers at scenes, and a template will show the 50 intersections with the most accidents.

Reidsville police expect to soon have suspect composite sketch software. Because trained composite artists are not widespread, a witness description of a suspect is drawn with the software and is immediately available to investigators and the media.

While old-fashioned crime fighting will never be better than technology, it does keep officers safer and helps solve cases faster.

"It all saves time and keeps officers out on the streets instead of them having to come in to write reports." Hunt said. ..more.. by Heather J. Smith can be reached at hsmith@reidsvillereview.com or 349-4331, ext. 16.

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