Shelly Palmer

Privacy hawks fret as FBI upgrades biometrics capacities

FBI

The computer revolution arrived late at the FBI, which was still collecting and matching fingerprints in 1999 in much the same way that it did when the agency first began collecting the images in 1924. But that’s been changing lately and privacy hawks are watching closely. As the millennium neared, the agency finally traded in its manual system for one in which a database of fingerprints and associated criminal histories could be searched and updated. Now, the next step. The FBI is going ahead with an advanced biometric identification service that it has been testing and will phase into operation around the nation over the next couple of years. Read the full story at CNET.