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Here's the Company That Sold DHS ICE's Notorious Face Recognition App
https://www.wired.com/story/mobile-fortify-face-recognition-nec-ice-cbp/FREE read: https://archive.ph/lb2K0
CBP points at ICE, who points back to CBP, and "NEC" points to some shadowy AI thing CBP is using, and NOBODY has ANY answers as to who owns this app, who runs it, who, if anybody, verifies its accuracy, who uses it, for precisely what -- but we DO know that if it misidentifies YOU, there is NO RECOURSE. Your entire life and ability to travel are just fucked. That's it. How is the data secured? Who has access? How is that access controlled? Where is the data? What if it is hacked? ..... NO ANSWERS. Because nobody in that goddamned crime syndicate cares.
By the way - - THEY TREAT OUR SOCIAL SECURITY AND OTHER SENSITIVE DATA THE SAME WAY.
. . .
The inventory also identified the app’s vendor as NEC, which had previously been unknown publicly. On its website, NEC advertises a facial recognition solution called Reveal, which it says can do one-to-many searches or one-to-one matches against databases of any size. CBP says the app’s vendor is NEC while ICE notes it was developed partially in house. A $23.9 million contract held between NEC and the DHS from 2020 to 2023 states that DHS was using NEC biometric matching products for “unlimited facial quantities, on unlimited hardware platforms, and at unlimited locations.” NEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
. . .
ICE says that the app can capture faces, “contactless” fingerprints, and photographs of identity documents. The app sends that data to CBP “for submission to government biometric matching systems.” Those systems then use AI to match people’s faces and fingerprints with existing records, and return possible matches along with biographic information. ICE says that it also extracts text from identity documents for “additional checks.” ICE says it doesn’t own or interact directly with the AI models, and that those belong to CBP.
. . .
While CBP says there are “sufficient monitoring protocols” in place for the app, ICE says that the development of monitoring protocols is in progress, and that it will identify potential impacts during an AI impact assessment. According to guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, which was issued before the inventory says the app was deployed for either CBP or ICE, agencies are supposed to complete an AI impact assessment before deploying any high-impact use case. Both CBP and ICE say the app is “high-impact” and “deployed.”
The consequences of an incorrect match can be devastating. 404 Media reported that a woman was detained after being misidentified twice by the app. ICE says that the development of an appeals process is “in-progress,” along with “steps has the agency taken to consult and incorporate feedback from end users of this AI use case and the public.”
The inventory also identified the app’s vendor as NEC, which had previously been unknown publicly. On its website, NEC advertises a facial recognition solution called Reveal, which it says can do one-to-many searches or one-to-one matches against databases of any size. CBP says the app’s vendor is NEC while ICE notes it was developed partially in house. A $23.9 million contract held between NEC and the DHS from 2020 to 2023 states that DHS was using NEC biometric matching products for “unlimited facial quantities, on unlimited hardware platforms, and at unlimited locations.” NEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
. . .
ICE says that the app can capture faces, “contactless” fingerprints, and photographs of identity documents. The app sends that data to CBP “for submission to government biometric matching systems.” Those systems then use AI to match people’s faces and fingerprints with existing records, and return possible matches along with biographic information. ICE says that it also extracts text from identity documents for “additional checks.” ICE says it doesn’t own or interact directly with the AI models, and that those belong to CBP.
. . .
While CBP says there are “sufficient monitoring protocols” in place for the app, ICE says that the development of monitoring protocols is in progress, and that it will identify potential impacts during an AI impact assessment. According to guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, which was issued before the inventory says the app was deployed for either CBP or ICE, agencies are supposed to complete an AI impact assessment before deploying any high-impact use case. Both CBP and ICE say the app is “high-impact” and “deployed.”
The consequences of an incorrect match can be devastating. 404 Media reported that a woman was detained after being misidentified twice by the app. ICE says that the development of an appeals process is “in-progress,” along with “steps has the agency taken to consult and incorporate feedback from end users of this AI use case and the public.”
Much more at the link(s):
https://www.wired.com/story/mobile-fortify-face-recognition-nec-ice-cbp/
FREE read: https://archive.ph/lb2K0
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