Say Cheese for the DMV

In the freshest installment of Facial Recognition: A U.S. Rigmarole, the Washington Post discovered that FBI and ICE agents are scanning DMV databases of dreary headshots for investigative leads.

In total, the FBI's facial recognition tool can access over 641 million photos...just your casual mountain of searchable biometric data and what the WaPo called the "bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure."

Ask for forgiveness, not permission

This activity wasn't congressionally authorized and has already drawn bipartisan rebukes from lawmakers.

We've seen this before in the private sector. Companies like IBM have 1) scoured social media, image hosting services, and the broader information superhighway, 2) swiped photos, and 3) used them to train facial recognition software.

Zoom out: With cities clamping down on facial recognition but lacking federal guidance, facial recognition is a 2019 spin on those federalism issues you learned about in AP Gov. Incidents like this will likely hasten calls for legal guardrails at the national level.