Police Facial Recognition Smartphones Will Be Used to Create Secret Watchlists

By MassPrivateI

A company called Dataworks Plus has developed a portable facial and fingerprint biometric scanner for law enforcement.

The ‘Evolution’ is a portable facial and fingerprint smartphone that police can use to identify everyone.

It is multi-modal and can capture fingerprint and facial images and is compatible with our RAPID-ID fingeprint recognition and FACE Plus facial recognition applications. (Source)

Dataworks claims police can identify anyone “regardless of factors such as hair color, glasses, and image background.”

So the next time you see a cop pointing their smartphone at someone, don’t be fooled, they are probably using ‘Evolution’ to identify them without a warrant.

Law enforcement will use Dataworks’ ‘Facial Recognition Case Management Module’ to identify everyone.

The Case Management module enables police officers to easily save and manage facial recognition searches.

• build case management sessions with multiple probe images,
• search for facial recognition results using multiple facial recognition engines,
• add images from photos or video (integrated video viewer),
• enhance your probe images using features such as pose correction and 3D modeling,
• narrow your searches using data filters,
• view probe and result images side-by-side,
• include annotations and measurements of similarities between images for court and more accurate identifications, and
• create reports based on your facial recognition searches.

Police will also use ‘Evolution’ to create their own secret ‘watchlist database’ of citizens.

Dataworks claims that they provide ‘solutions’ to more than one thousand law enforcement agencies. And that their ‘solutions’ are so sensitive their employees had to pass comprehensive background checks and security training.

What are Dataworks’ ‘solutions’?

A quick look at their product page, reveals their ‘solutions’ are nothing more than surveillance devices capturing thousands of faces and fingerprints.

Hence the need for security training, etc.

What role does the Secret Service and DHS play in police facial recognition smartphones?

A Google search of Dataworks Plus and Homeland Security, reveals that they design and manufacture products for DHS. According to Government-Contractors.Inside Gov.com, Dataworks has twenty-one contracts with DHS and the DoJ.

Dataworks, also has a close relationship with the United States Secret Service (USSS) Dataworks and the USSS had a three-year purchase agreement from 2012-2015. (Click here to view Dataworks’ partners.)

DHS, sorry I meant Dataworks, wants police to use their spying smartphones so bad that they created their own Grants Resources page. Dataworks lists sixteen different ways police can get the money to purchase ‘Evolution’ smartphones for their officers.

You know things are getting worse when companies are openly working with DHS and the Secret Service to put facial recognition smartphones into every cop’s hands.

Image credit: Daily Dot

You can read more at the MassPrivateI blog, where this article first appeared.