A MART脥NEZ, HOST:
Federal immigration officers often use facial recognition in the field to identify undocumented immigrants. Now, a newly revealed document from the Department of Homeland Security outlines plans to give local police the same technology. NPR's Meg Anderson is here to explain this. So, Meg, tell us more about the DHS document and the tech it describes.
MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE: Yeah. So the existence of this particular document was first reported by the news site 404 Media. And it describes a mobile app designed for local police who are deputized by ICE to enforce immigration law. Police use the app to scan the faces of people they stop. The app then runs those faces against more than 250 million government records. We're talking State Department visa records, the database TSA uses at airports. Once someone's face is scanned, the app tells police whether or not that person can be detained for an immigration violation.
MART脥NEZ: All right. So what do we know about how police will actually use this technology?
ANDERSON: Not a lot, but we do know the app launched last September. That suggests that police have already been using it. We don't know for sure. And then there's a question of whether police need to have some reason or suspicion to stop people before they use the app. I spoke to Clare Garvie about that. She's a lawyer with the Policing Project at New York University.
CLARE GARVIE: Can they walk around taking photos of whoever as sort of a dragnet way to attempt to identify individuals who might be in the country unlawfully?
ANDERSON: And I should note, ICE and Border Patrol already use facial recognition technology. During ICE surges in various cities, it's been common for federal officers to take photos of people, both immigrants and protesters.
MART脥NEZ: I saw Democrats in Congress have said that they're worried that the federal government is collecting this type of biometric data and storing it in a database. Does this document offer any more insight on that?
ANDERSON: Yeah. So the administration has repeatedly denied the existence of a database of protesters. But last week, my colleague Jude Joffe-Block reported on a letter sent to members of Congress in which former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons indicated the agency does give itself wide latitude to collect information on people. And we've heard from protesters that ICE officers have told them their photo will end up in a database, and this new document backs that up. It states that the photos end up in an internal DHS system and that they're stored there for 15 years.
MART脥NEZ: All right. There's got to be a few privacy concerns.
ANDERSON: Yeah. So first, privacy experts I spoke to felt like this app could chill freedom of speech, right? People might worry that they'll be identified at a protest, for instance, and could end up on some sort of watch list. Second, they brought up the fact that facial recognition doesn't always get it right - right? - and some people detained by ICE have been mistakenly ID'd by this technology. And third, they said citizens will get caught up in this. The app can't know, you know, your citizenship - right? - before the scan. And because every photo is kept for 15 years, that suggests a long-term record of both citizens and immigrants. Patrick Eddington with the libertarian Cato Institute said giving police this capability magnifies all of those potential problems.
PATRICK EDDINGTON: And that's what I worry about when we start talking about how this kind of technology - which can impact individual rights - when it's scaled, it can have, like, potentially very, very large effects, affecting lots and lots of people.
MART脥NEZ: Meg, what does DHS have to say about this new app?
ANDERSON: So I asked DHS how police are using the app. The agency did not provide any more insight to us on that. But in a statement, you know, they said ICE is committed to ensuring that their local police partners have the tools that they need to support ICE's mass deportation mission. And they insist that these tools are constitutional and respect people's privacy interests.
MART脥NEZ: That's NPR's Meg Anderson. Meg, thanks.
ANDERSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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