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6 Jun, 2014

What You Should Know About Face Recognition Technology | Alternet

By Tana Ganeva

June 4, 2014 – The NSA’s spying doesn’t stop at texts, emails, phone metadata, World of Warcraft, eavesdropping on foreign officials or archiving every phone call made by everyone in the Bahamas. The spy agency is also collecting millions of images every day to plug into face recognition technology, according to a New York Times report based on documents obtained by Edward Snowden.

The NYT notes that the agency has grown increasingly reliant on face recognition technology in the past four years, capitalizing on the vast amount of images passed around through text, email, even video conferencing.

Although many government agencies, including the FBI, DHS and some local police departments use face recognition programs, the NSA has the added advantage of holding a colossal amount of extra information that can be linked to the image, the report notes. A Powerpoint presentation cited in the article showed images of several men along with their known associates and what informants have said about them.

Read the rest: What You Should Know About Face Recognition Technology Used by Police and Spy Agencies Like the NSA | Alternet.