US gives local police a face-scanning app similar to one used by ICE agents

79 pointsposted 14 hours ago
by duxup
(arstechnica.com)

73 Comments

neom

13 hours ago

I did a lot of research into this the other day while bored, based on all the gov contracts, the stack doesn't seem that complex, NEC seem to provide very nice tooling and it seems to work well with Palantir.

Something like: [Android App – Kotlin + CameraX + ML Kit] -> [HTTPS/mTLS] -> [AWS API Gateway -> Palantir Foundry middleware] -> [NEC face match + NeoFace] -> [DHS IDENT/HART (Thales fingerprints)] -> [PostgreSQL + Splunk audit]

Here was my reading/watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1PSAB3DvwY

https://uip.nec-help.com/latest-onprem/Release-Notes/Version...

https://www.milestonesys.com/technology-partner-finder/nec/n...

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD1018010.pdf

https://www.sita.aero/pressroom/blog/embracing-the-change-an...

janalsncm

14 hours ago

The US is quickly acquiring the downsides of authoritarianism without any of the upsides: for example increased government efficiency and reduced crime.

Singapore is safer in the dead of night than New York City is in the middle of the day. (Population is smaller than NYC but bigger than LA.)

janice1999

14 hours ago

The idea authoritarianism reduces crime or increases efficiency or put more bluntly "at least Mussolini made the trains run on time" is a fallacy. Crime still happens, it's just that those connected to the regime are protected from consequences, see for example the blatant corruption in Russia or the untouchable "Princelings" (CCP officials offspring) in China.

And no, Mussolini didn't make the trains run on time - he took credit for rail improvements started before he took power and then led his country into disastrous wars that destroyed it.

janalsncm

13 hours ago

Do you dispute the homicide rate I mentioned? To be more specific, homicide rates are 60x higher in NYC.

To put it another way, it would take two months of living there to match a single day’s risk of being murdered in NYC.

Of course this does not mean fewer rights leads to more safety. Under a bad government, you get nothing in return for your rights. But we should be explicit that there is a tradeoff to be made.

runako

13 hours ago

1. Comparing a city-state to a city in a large country is kind of a silly exercise. There is no hard border at ("everything's legal in") New Jersey, for example.

2. Singapore has a very different firearm regulation regime than the US (or even New York State or NYC). Your argument could make sense as an argument in favor of more tightly restricting firearm ownership in the US.

3. Your argument doesn't even attempt to generalize to other authoritarian regimes. One could equally compare NYC's murder rate with that of Japan or Switzerland, which did not have to use authoritarianism to achieve low homicide rates.

godelski

13 hours ago

It's not silly to compare, but it is silly to draw causal relationships. Especially when cherry-picking

  - Singapore is authoritarian and has a low homicide rate
  - Venezuela is authoritarian and has a high homicide rate
Huh... maybe authoritarianism isn't sufficient to conclude the homicide rate... I mean Saint Kitts and Nevis is a constitutional monarchy and has the highest homicide rate in the world.

But let's also compare Homicide and GDP[0]. There's multiple interesting things to say from graphs like this. Though I still wouldn't conclude a causation here.

People love data when it confirms what they already believe but people don't like putting in the work needed to interpret data. Granted, the latter is not easy. But maybe if we're not math lovers we probably shouldn't claim to also be data lovers.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate-vs-gdp-pc?x...

aeonfox

12 hours ago

Maybe the dichotomy here is between governments that invest in their people intelligently vs those that don't.

nandomrumber

7 hours ago

The most valuable commodity is trust.

janalsncm

13 hours ago

1. The city vs country distinction cannot account for a 60x difference in safety. There are many other countries which are also orders of magnitude safer than both NYC and the US.

2. One person’s “firearm regulation” is another’s authoritarianism. A regulation simply means one’s ability to have a firearm will be taken away in some cases i.e. fewer rights.

3. There is no point where freedom ends and authoritarianism begins. It’s a matter of the types and number of rights which are protected by the government. Anyone who believes removing the right to bear arms in some circumstances agrees that there can be a tradeoff between freedom and safety which was the core of my argument, that the US is becoming less free while becoming no more safe.

ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7

13 hours ago

I guess it depends what you consider a crime to be. Like suppression of human rights, corporal and capital punishment, and so on.

verdverm

13 hours ago

> Do you dispute the homicide rate I mentioned?

You didn't mention any rate prior and you provide no supporting evidence, multiple sources for each is preferred. Is this supposed 60x higher rate per day or per person?

and as others have said, comparing a city (urban) to a whole country (mixed) is silly

janalsncm

13 hours ago

The rate is per 100k people over a year, which is how homicide rates are usually reported. To my understanding, these numbers aren’t disputed.

Singapore is a city and NYC is a city. Of course no comparison will be perfect, but the significant difference in safety will not go away through clever accounting.

verdverm

11 hours ago

you haven't provided any citations for "significant"

not going to believe a stranger from an internet forum saying 60x

severe punishments are more likely the defining factor than gov't type

janice1999

13 hours ago

> But we should be explicit that there is a tradeoff to be made.

Did you read what I wrote? There is no "tradeoff". Authoritarianism doesn't guarantee crime reduction and it certainly is not the only way to achieve it. I live in a vibrant democracy with low crime and an almost totally unarmed police force (thanks to strict gun control and a public health care system).

rich_sasha

9 hours ago

Illiberal government moves the ceiling of what is possible, in particular for crime fighting but not only, without a guarantee of success.

At this level it's almost a tautology. Liberal governments choose not to do things because they would be illiberal, and illiberal governments don't mind.

It doesn't mean illiberal governments are better - on average, data would probably say otherwise, causation or correlation.

But undoubtedly, there are illiberal governments that achieve very good outcomes for their residents through illiberal means - surveillance, "streamlined" decision making etc. You can push the envelope of what the gov can do, at the expense of liberal values, and still achieve something else that's objectively good.

And the US is pushing this envelope for no benefit for its citizens, it would seem.

user

13 hours ago

[deleted]

mothballed

13 hours ago

Elected authoritarianism is arguably worse than many other forms of authoritarianism. A King has a continuing interest in building and maintaining the value of his Kingdom as well as an interest in a multi-generational outlook on investment and strategy. Trump has 3 years left to plunder everything he can with no incentive of ownership to maintain anything.

mikkupikku

13 hours ago

Yeah okay but Singapore is great and if the crime still exists but hidden from the public, that's good for the public!

Also, you're the only one talking about Mussolini.

buran77

13 hours ago

> The idea authoritarianism reduces crime [...] is a fallacy. Crime still happens

There's a whole range between "reduces" and "eliminates", and introducing the "elimination" argument is a strawman.

Authoritarian regimes do cut down on crime committed by the oppressed masses. It's a side effect of the heavy handed control that allows those in power to stay in power. Severely punishing crime is one more means of exerting more power and control over that population, the leaders can't afford to let regular people get away with flaunting authority. But the upper echelons will always commit crimes or abuses especially against those they control because they can afford to get away with it.

water-data-dude

13 hours ago

"Decreased crime" under an authoritarian regime is probably only true if you don't consider anything the state does a crime.

erentz

12 hours ago

You’re seriously cherry picking the best authoritarian comparison here. Singapore is definitely an outsider. Let’s also include Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Iran, China, North Korea, Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, etc.

z2

13 hours ago

I feel there's probably a formal academic topology for this, but it seems on one end you have party-dominant or single party authoritarianism (Singapore arguably) and on the other end you have cult of personality style. The former is often more stable and functional than the latter, but neither guarantees optimal decisions. And some regimes like North Korea give you the downsides of both!

janalsncm

13 hours ago

Authoritarianism isn’t the absence of democracy imo. On some dimensions (e.g. voter suppression) you could even argue that Singapore’s elections are more fair than in the US.

mmooss

13 hours ago

Democracies are overwhelmingly the most efficient governments. Look at long-standing democracies and autocracies - which are the most efficient and effective? The least corrupt?

Autocracies are like communist centrally-planned economies. If the autocrat isn't all-knowing and all-good, they can't possibly know enough to run things - or even to make enough decisions to avoid being a bottleneck. One of the great advantages of democracies is that the people affected have power - they have a seat at the table. They know what's going on and what they need. If you want to plan flood relief for a town in Mississippi, ask the people there what the problems are and what they need. If you want to regulate software development, developers get input.

That goes for social, political, financial, economic, foreign affairs, and all other policy.

Regarding crime, the autocrat and servants commit plenty of that. Generally, thieves don't break down your door in the middle of the night, kidnap you, and imprison and torture you for years without trial - or just seize all your assets and prevent you from working. Also, what source do you have on crime levels in autocracies - where could reliable information come from? And as another commenter said, I don't see a correlation between crime and democracy.

(Singapore's very unusual nature makes it a poor example.)

mothballed

13 hours ago

There have been a few autocratic-esque governments that have gotten around the dictator information problem by basically implementing a free-ish market by fiat.

This is how much of UAE and to the extent Singapore is one, does it.

The dictator will basically let the free market operate and then interfere a few percent off the top of that. They are not torturing enough people to destroy their economy.

mmooss

13 hours ago

> There have been a few autocratic-esque governments that have gotten around the dictator information problem by basically implementing a free-ish market by fiat.

The way I understand that is they allow some freedom and thus receive some of the benefits. They still are far behind democracies socially, politically, economically, militarily, etc.

China did the same for awhile, starting small when Deng Xiaopeng took power and expanding until Xi took over.

Freedom of individuals, which allows a country to harness all of their talents and imaginations, is an enormous advantage. People forget that freedom is the most powerful thing in the world.

mothballed

13 hours ago

I realize it's a flawed analysis but both UAE and Singapore are higher on the Index of Economic Freedom [than USA], although much worse in certain social aspects. They also are more efficient in their military spending.

guywithahat

13 hours ago

Is reduced crime an upside of authoritarianism? I would argue there are lots of authoritarian and non-authoritarian governments with high and low levels of crime. In research crime tends to be more about the people and culture, not income or government style, and whether a government is hard or easy on crime seems more like a policy decision.

ModernMech

13 hours ago

The government is hyper efficient right now. The only efficiency guaranteed under authoritarianism is the will of the authoritarian gets executed without any checks or balances, which is very efficient. Trump wants tariffs, Trump gets tariffs, despite laws saying he can't. Trump wants troops in the cities, Trump gets troops in the cities despite laws saying he can't. Trump wants to bomb boats, Trump gets to bomb boats -- no committees, no votes, no reviews, no assessments -- just exploding boats. Trump wants to bulldoze the Whitehouse, well then by God it's gone the next day. Talk about efficient!

That this doesn't translate into benefits for you personally or the citizens generally does not mean the system is not working very efficiently right now.

"Efficient" is a word that has a positive connotation, but in the context of authoritarianism it means something very very bad for liberty, freedom, civil rights, and democracy -- all things that get in the way of authoritarian efficiency.

janalsncm

13 hours ago

To take advantage of those efficiencies you would need to give power to people who understand what they are doing. Trump frankly doesn’t even understand how best to accomplish his own goals, even if we agreed they were worthwhile.

jacquesm

13 hours ago

So is Switzerland.

Correlation != causation.

lukan

14 hours ago

May I ask, why there is such a focus on face scanning apps in the first place?

Aren't fingerprints way more easy to match correctly? Or is it about checking the faces with social media databases etc to see where the person is coming from?

toomuchtodo

14 hours ago

Finger prints require physical contact, facial recognition can be done at a distance and dragnet style. Think Flock Group/Safety ALPRs (automated license plate recognition), but by face instead of license plates.

embedding-shape

14 hours ago

> Finger prints require physical contact, facial recognition can be done at a distance and dragnet style

I'm sure there are lots of existing (pesky) laws about grabbing people and force-taking their fingerprint, or similar, while maybe not so many of those laws against taking a quick picture of a "suspects" face.

lukan

14 hours ago

That sounds like a convincing legal reason.

lukan

14 hours ago

Yes, but I thought this is for police doing a scan while checking the person. Or is the idea the police just makes scans of people around them out of a distance?

toomuchtodo

13 hours ago

Broadly speaking, you don't have a right to privacy having your photo taken in the US. Is this a fourth amendment violation? I don't know. What is the difference between a face scan and a photo? More detail and accuracy is going to require close range facial depth mapping via infrared, versus facial recognition using photos or live video feeds.

advisedwang

14 hours ago

They have faces for every US passport and for every/many[1] REAL ID drivers license. They only have fingerprints for some people that have been arrested and aliens that were admitted into the country.

[1] I'm not sure if REAL ID means the feds get access to driving license details or if there's just a lot of states that share this data voluntarily.

mothballed

13 hours ago

Sometimes CBP will take your fingerprint even for US citizens that enter the country. They did it to me (forcefully) even though I appeared with valid US passport.

It's my understanding they don't need a warrant for biometrics upon entering the country.

throw-qqqqq

14 hours ago

I think you are right that fingerprints are much easier to read and compare. I do believe it is for matching against images from social media, driver’s license, passports etc.

The government likely has pictures of many more people than they have fingerprints of.

jMyles

14 hours ago

Cynically, I imagine that a more difficult and less accurate system is desirable insofar as it can launder criminal behavior as computer error and absolve the perpetrator of whatever kidnapping / assault charges they might otherwise face.

Ostensibly, if ICE are acting within the scope of their duties, there are limits to the ways in which they can be charged with violations of state laws. An baroque system of identification allows them to claim they were acting in that scope.

In this way, it is perhaps similar to the widespread acceptance of drug-sniffing dogs which are no better than a coin flip (see Florida v. Harris, for example), and which can be trained to signal whether drugs are present or not.

ModernMech

13 hours ago

Correct, they're not trying to be accurate. They're using methods that they know to be inaccurate against minorities to get probable cause enough to arrest and deport them. If there's an issue, if they are wrong, if they violate someone's civil liberties so what? The point is deport them by any means necessary, because when they're gone they can't fight back. The Supreme Court said racial profiling is okay as long as it's done with some other factors. They are telegraphing as long as there is some amount of "process" even if it's theatre, racially profiling is fine as far as SCOTUS is concerned.

jimt1234

13 hours ago

IANAL but I'm curious about court challenges for these facial recognition apps/systems used by law enforcement. I knew of a guy years ago that caught a DUI based on a breathalyzer. His lawyer challenged the case and got it dismissed because the breathalyzer machine wasn't properly maintained, something about testing certifications. So, is a lawyer gonna be able to challenge these facial recognition systems, and get cases dismissed because of a failed unit test? Half-joking, but I look forward to these types of challenges.

whatsupdog

13 hours ago

The difference is that breathalyzers need to be regularly calibrated, otherwise they give wrong readings. There's no calibration needed for these systems once setup. And if they are wrong, the police will catch the wrong guy and end up leaving him once confirming his ID. I'm not that is not a problem, but it's not something that can be challenged in a court.

relaxing

12 hours ago

> There's no calibration needed for these systems once setup.

Bullshit. There’s ample evidence of facial recognition failing in the presence of, for instance, underexposed imaging, particularly for individuals that are also dark in complexion.

shevy-java

13 hours ago

I think this actually goes against the US constitution.

Let me explain why:

Law enforcement can only investigate people based on certain provisions. The typical one is of "reasonable suspicion" of a crime. This also has to be articulated, at the latest in the police report.

With a face-scanning app, people who are registered, are no longer anonymous. The cops know who they are. However had, what legal basis would they have to know who is who at all times, without suspicion of a crime? This basically bypasses protection in the legal system. It will be interesting to see whether the high court will allow it, because if so then they can also discard the last ~80 years of legislation here. So I am pretty certain that Trump will lose this one eventually. Meanwhile he achieves that the ICE gangsters will do so against "suspected migrants", which is all the MAGA base wants to achieve.

neom

12 hours ago

The app is specifically for use in immigration enforcement operations under Section 287(g) agreements. 287(g) allows ICE to formally delegate certain immigration enforcement powers to state and local police, everyone still needs reasonable suspicion, it's just police now have immigration act they can work with, also immigration is often civil not criminal, creating the grey area I believe as the standard for what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" in immigration enforcement can be lower/different than for criminal law. They can do something like: Traffic violations (broken taillight, speeding 5mph over) + "nervousness" + "area known for undocumented workers" - then scan them with the app to verify their immigration status using 287(g).

nomel

13 hours ago

> However had, what legal basis would they have to know who is who at all times, without suspicion of a crime?

The following is a genuine question, not a statement: Would known statistics/tax info for a particular region pass "reasonable suspicion"?

relaxing

12 hours ago

No. Reasonable suspicion involves observed behaviors of an individual. Context about the area the individual is observed in could be supporting information, but not the entire justification for a stop.

chneu

12 hours ago

The US Supreme Court doesn't care.

klaff

13 hours ago

Given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, I don't share your optimism.

mikkupikku

13 hours ago

Honestly the number of people who get arrested for nothing more than obstinately refusing to give their name is huge. Refusal is pointless since they're going to get your name after taking you in, by refusing you're just delaying the inevitable. This is one of the many little ways that the system fucks over people who don't understand the system and/or have poor impulse control or excessively stubborn attitudes, low IQ people generally.

Basically, the laws requiring people to identify themselves are a trap set to snap on low IQ people. It's a cruel status quo, it doesn't need to be this way. Arguably the best solution would be to change the laws which require people to identify themselves. The obvious counter-argument is that this would greatly inhibit catching people who have outstanding warrants.

Face scanning tech could have the effect of disarming this trap. Instead of arresting everybody who refuses to give a name, the police can get your name through an app, learn that you have no warrants, and then tell you you're free to go instead of arresting you for no reason other than your stubborn attitude.

Overall though, I disapprove of this technology for it's potential to be scaled into massive comprehensive dragnet surveillance, very similar to what is already happening with license plate detection and traffic cameras.

wvenable

13 hours ago

In the US, whether you're legally required to identify yourself depends on the situation and the state:

"Stop and identify" states: If police have reasonable suspicion that you're involved in a crime, you can be required to state your name. Refusal can result in arrest.

Non–stop-and-identify states: You generally don't have to provide your name unless you're lawfully detained or arrested.

It's not illegal everywhere to refuse, but, as you said it can escalate the situation.

However, from a civil liberties perspective, people do explicitly choose to refuse in order to assert their rights and/or protest unlawful stops. You can certainly choose to be a high-IQ person, always give your name, and contribute to the eroding of your own rights over time. Face scanning tech just removes that option and automatically eliminates those civil liberties.

Bender

13 hours ago

I was curious about this so I looked it up. Here are the states that do not require one to identify.

Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, plus Washington D.C.

and then

- You must be detained on reasonable suspicion; a casual chat (“consensual encounter”) never triggers the duty.

- Verbal name only—no law forces you to carry or hand over a card.

- Driving is separate—every state requires a license on traffic stops.

- Lying is illegal everywhere (false ID to police is usually a misdemeanor).

- Filming police is protected nationwide; identifying yourself is unrelated.

verdverm

13 hours ago

> it's potential to be scaled into massive comprehensive dragnet surveillance

that potential has become kinetic, we're living it right now

lossolo

12 hours ago

Minority Report when?

jMyles

14 hours ago

Like the illusion of diversity at a shopping mall, with many 'competing' stores being mostly or entirely owned by the same parent corporations, I think we need to question the degree of independent decision-making at local police departments, from state troopers all the way to the college campus level.

I think some localities do a better job than others of ensuring a transparent process, either through the municipal legislative body or a police commission, of decision-making.

But it's telling that, at the end of the day, when we have an actual group of armed people in our cities, acting as though they are beholden to no laws (and even declaring as much at some times and places), our police forces are largely standing down rather than defending the populace and enforcing the laws.

I can understand a few days of wrangling with municipal legal departments over the particularities of the supremacy clause, but once it became clear that ICE was acting wildly out of scope of their duties, and violating state and local laws in the process, it became the obvious duty of local police officers to effect arrests and refer charges to local district attorneys.

What is the underlying reason that's not happening? I'm mostly an abolitionist - I believe that the economics of slavery persist through the prison system and that we can't really craft a new slavery-free system until we dispense with the notion that some people have greater law-enforcement authority than others, or the right to be more armed than others.

But it is just simply a matter that police will always fall in line with federal (or perhaps even global?) say-so, regardless of the laws? Is it a follow-the-money thing?

We've now had ICE agents kidnap US citizens, recklessly discharge firearms, invade every unit of an apartment building with no warrant (not that any warrant providing for such an invasion would be constitutional anyhow), etc. etc. - things that, if anyone else did, they'd be charged without a doubt.

How far does it go? If ICE sexually assaults someone in broad daylight, can they simply tell their employer they'd prefer not to be charged with a crime?

I'm not even sure that'd be an escalation at this point; they've already done things that are just as damaging to society.

engeljohnb

14 hours ago

It's because most police officers voted for this and this is exactly what they wanted.

jMyles

13 hours ago

...I'd like to see data supporting that conclusion. Even if police officers disproportionately supported a particular candidate, that doesn't per se reveal their views on this issue in particular.

actionfromafar

13 hours ago

Sexually assault someone, that's just due process MAGA-style. Good luck litigating that from Alligator Auschwitz or Sudan.

mothballed

13 hours ago

Lol litigating against federal officials that are even in the most tangentially plausible way executing their orders, or even worst state officials acting as part of a federal task force (not only have federal form of QI/sovereign immunity but can play state/federal jurisdiction fuck fuck games on top of that) is next to impossible.

verdverm

13 hours ago

> litigating against federal officials ... is next to impossible.

it's done through elections, and DOJ efforts in the next admin, sort of? (this has all become even more political the last 5 years)

jMyles

13 hours ago

I think the point is:

It's bizarre (and not at all in keeping with the western legal tradition) that particular people can essentially not be named as defendants in a civil matter depending on their employer.

Even the "benefit of clergy" claimed by the perpetrators of the Boston massacre did not, as far as I know, preclude civil proceedings against them.

Elections are not a good tool to determine which civil matters may proceed, and particularly blunt if the mechanism is based on who changes state employment status on their basis.

verdverm

12 hours ago

I agree with you, but it's not the way it works

We're going to need to do some serious work to shore up the gaps and rough edges of the constitution that have been exposed by the current regime

tantalor

13 hours ago

"Officer, I don't consent to this unreasonable search."

acdha

13 hours ago

You’re talking about people who are breaking into U.S. citizens’ homes or vehicles and forcibly detaining them for extended periods of time or shooting them. There isn’t a magic phrase which helps someone who isn’t white and affluent get treated legally.

Simulacra

13 hours ago

With all the cameras in public, such as those hanging from every traffic light in America, I just assumed they already had this. Certainly private industry and retail establishments have it. Unfortunately, this latest development does not surprise me.