For those of you that still hold onto to the idea that America will never follow in China's, Big Brother footsteps, I give you this disturbing story.

A recent CNet article revealed how the Washington County Sheriff's Office (WCSO) in Oregon uses Amazon's Rekognition software to identify shoplifters.

"The speedy investigation was made possible by Amazon's Rekognition, facial recognition software that let the Washington County Sheriff's Office create its own searchable database of county jail mugshots."

An unnamed WCSO Deputy allegedly used Amazon's Rekognition to search a 300,000 person mugshot database looking for a potential match.

"A WCSO deputy watched a surveillance recording of the woman pilfering the boots, grabbed pictures of her face from the footage and imported them into the sheriff's office's new tool. He quickly got back a digital lineup of mugshots and found a possible match."

What makes this so disturbing, is number one, a cop is using a private corporation's software to identify people which has never been independently vetted for accuracy 'because it is too sophisticated.' And secondly, each time a police officer investigates a petty crime; 300,000 people will have their faces scanned without a warrant.

Using facial recognition to identify people accused of petty crimes is a mirror image of what is happening in China.

China uses facial recognition to identify citizens accused of jaywalking and bans "discredited" citizens from taking buses and trains for unspecified behavioral crimes.

Law enforcement and retailers are creating a nationwide facial recognition database of everyone.

Yesterday, CNet warned that retail stores are secretly using facial recognition to identify shoppers and how the potential for abuse affects everyone.

"With facial recognition, getting caught in one store could mean a digital record of your face is shared across the country. Stores are already using the technology for security purposes and can share that data -- meaning that if one store considers you a threat, every business in that network could come to the same conclusion."

Creating secret watchlists of Americans is major concern that even CNet is acknowledging.

"If someone is barred from one store because of facial recognition, that person could potentially be prevented from visiting another branch of that same store ever again."

Retailers are also using things like Iris tracking cameras, thermal imaging cameras and loyalty rewards to secretly identify shoppers.

Oddly, or perhaps by design, the WCSO made no mention of searching the photos of Oregon's 3.1 million drivers licenses or Real-ID's nationwide database of more than 300 million U.S. citizens.

Law enforcement will have access to a nationwide facial recognition system

Homeland Security doesn't even attempt to hide that fact that Real-ID is really a nationwide facial recognition system. An article written by Joan Friedland for the National Immigration Center spells it out

"Federal and state agencies as well as for-profit and nonprofit corporations, have been working “under the radar” to implement REAL ID’s information-sharing and database creation system."

DHS has contracted out the development of this system through “multiple layers of outsourcing and subcontracting,” with operations that are largely hidden from public view. The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and the for-profit company Clerus Solutions are working on systems that lay the foundation for much broader information-sharing and a centralized database.

Homeland Security and law enforcement have taken China's massive spy on every citizen program and adopted it to create a nation of suspects.

Read More...

Related Articles:

Your face may be one in a million, but there are little to no consumer protections regarding how companies using facial recognition technology share your face and other information they capture about you.

The Tenth Amendment Center has joined more than 85 other organizations demanding Microsoft, Google and Amazon stop providing facial recognition surveillance technology to government agencies.The TAC signed on to separate letters to all three companies: Microsoft, Amazon, Google. The coalition makes it clear to each company a decision to provide face surveillance technology to the government threatens basic liberties and will also undermine public trust in its business.

A coalition of over 85 racial justice, faith, and civil, human, and immigrants’ rights groups today sent letters to Microsoft, Amazon, and Google demanding the companies commit not to sell face surveillance technology to the government.

The FBI is piloting Amazon’s facial matching software—Amazon Rekognition—as a means to sift through mountains of video surveillance footage the agency routinely collects during investigations.