The NYPD is increasingly turning to DNA to help solve crimes. And it's worked: The science has helped develop investigative leads and given prosecutors ammunition in court. But as the police have gotten more aggressive about collecting genetic material, they've quietly amassed a giant database of DNA profiles without any laws and little oversight over how they can use it.

As the science advances and the size of the databases grows, civil-liberties groups, defense attorneys and advocates are ringing alarm bells.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/nypds-growing-dna-database-raises-concern/

New York City is building a vast, unregulated DNA database that police are already using to connect suspects to evidence from crime scenes across the five boroughs.

In the last five years, the number of DNA profiles in New York's local database has grown dramatically, driven in part by a push to collect DNA in every gun case. As of July, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was storing about 64,000 genetic profiles, The Trace and WNYC have learned.

Details about the size of the database and its rapid growth have not been previously reported.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/push-solve-gun-cases-fuels-growth-new-york-dna-database-article-1.3516711

A new rule will prevent millions of people from finding out if their fingerprints, iris scans and other biometric information is stored in a massive federal database.

The FBI’s Next Generation Identification system stores the biometric records of people who have undergone background checks for jobs, volunteer positions and military service, as well as of those who have criminal records. Effective Aug. 31, that database will be exempt from certain parts of the Privacy Act, a law that allows people whose records are held by the federal government to request more information about which records those are.

The exemption means the FBI doesn't have to acknowledge if it is storing the biometric records of an individual in that database; the bureau has argued that notifying people that they were in the database could compromise investigations.

http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2017/08/if-fbi-has-your-biometrics-it-doesnt-have-tell-you/139952/

According to an article in Texas Public Radio, law enforcement will now have access to DHS's massive biometric database.

"Texas law enforcement are now getting a big assist from the federal government. Texas is the first and only state to get access to a massive Department of Homeland Security biometric database..."

Letting police have access to everyone's biomterics is asinine and the potential for abuse is astronomical.

Just imagine what will happen, when a politician wants police to give them information about a political opponent. Just imagine what will happen, when a cop wants to get information about a pretty woman or handsome man? Just imagine what will happen when police want information on activists. Just imagine the type of information that police can gather from Real-ID licenses and passports.

This has all the earmarks of a police state.

DHS's massive national biometric database

DHS's massive database is called the 'Automated Biometric Identification System' (IDENT).

"IDENT has evolved over the years into the central DHS -wide system for the storage and
processing of biometric data. IDENT stores and processes biometric data—digital fingerprints, photographs, iris scans, and facial images—and links biometrics with biographic information to establish and verify identities. IDENT serves as a biographic and biometric repository for the Department."
(Click here to see a revealing IDENT PowerPoint slide show.)

DHS Secretary Patrick Nemeth, admits that they're spying on millions of people, "we have a database of 212 million people."

Think about what's happening, it's no longer a 'conspiracy theory' that DHS is running our police departments.

Who do you think supplies cops with Stingrays, license plate readers, assault weapons, MRAP's etc.?

It's DHS,

Since 9/11, DHS has been slowly creating a national spying civilian police force and for all intents and purposes, they've succeeded.

http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2017/05/police-given-access-to-dhss-massive.html

Your smartphone may have some apps that are continuously listening inaudible, high-frequency ultrasonic sounds from your surroundings and they know where you go, what you like and dislike — all without your knowledge.

Ultrasonic Cross-Device Tracking is a new technology that some marketers and advertising companies are currently using to track users across multiple devices and have access to more information than ever before for ad targeting.

For example, retail stores you visit, a commercial on TV or an advertisement on a web page can emit a unique "ultrasonic audio beacon" that can be picked up by your device’s mobile application containing a receiver.

This information helps advertisers to create your personalized profile and collect your interests by figuring out that both devices probably belongs to you, allowing them to target you with interest-based advertisements.

http://thehackernews.com/2017/05/ultrasonic-tracking-signals-apps.html

Alice describes her office as a “panopticon” — a structure built for total surveillance. Your office may be one, too. Whether through “voluntary” corporate wellness programs, smart badges that record voices and GPS locations, or surveillance apps in their mobile phones and personal computers, Americans are offering up more and more personal data at work. Most of them don’t have much idea of where that data goes, or how it will be used — and there aren’t that many limits on what employers can find out about their employees, or what they can do with the data. The more people who opt in now, the harder it will be to opt out in the future.

And it’s about to get much worse.

https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/04/07/workplace-surveillance-positioned-new-office-perk/

Dr. Joseph Farrell returns to Our Interesting Times to discuss Rotten to the (Common) Core: Public Schooling, Standardized Tests, and the Surveillance, a book he co-wrote with Gary Lawrence. We talk briefly about the troubled history of compulsory education in the United States and the secret agendas behind it. Later we discuss how corporations are enriching themselves under the guise of public education and the problems with standardized testing which Dr. Farrell sees as a mass data collection operation being carried out for the benefit of the corporate state. (3-31-17)

Republicans in Congress just voted to reverse a landmark FCC privacy rule that opens the door for ISPs to sell customer data. Lawmakers provided no credible reason for this being in the interest of Americans, except for vague platitudes about “consumer choice” and “free markets,” as if consumers at the mercy of their local internet monopoly are craving to have their web history quietly sold to marketers and any other third party willing to pay.

The only people who seem to want this are the people who are going to make lots of money from it. (Hint: they work for companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T.) Incidentally, these people and their companies routinely give lots of money to members of Congress.

So here is a list of the lawmakers who voted to betray you, and how much money they received from the telecom industry in their most recent election cycle.

http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/29/15100620/congress-fcc-isp-web-browsing-privacy-fire-sale

CLARIFYING EVENTS in politics are often healthy even when they produce awful outcomes. Such is the case with yesterday’s vote by House Republicans to free internet service providers (ISPs) – primarily AT&T, Comcast and Verizon – from the Obama-era FCC regulations barring them from storing and selling their users’ browsing histories without their consent. The vote followed an identical one last week in the Senate exclusively along party lines.

It’s hard to overstate what a blow to individual privacy this is. Unlike Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Google – which can track and sell only those activities of yours which you engage in while using their specific service – ISPs can track everything you do online. “These companies carry all of your Internet traffic and can examine each packet in detail to build up a profile on you,” explained two experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Worse, it is not particularly difficult to avoid using specific services (such as Facebook) that are known to undermine privacy, but consumers often have very few choices for ISPs; it’s a virtual monopoly.

It’s hardly rare for the U.S. Congress to enact measures gutting online privacy: indeed, the last two decades have ushered in a legislative scheme that implements a virtually ubiquitous Surveillance State composed of both public intelligence and military agencies along with their private-sector “partners.” Members of Congress voting for these pro-surveillance measures invariably offer the pretext that they are acting for the benefit of American citizens – whose privacy they are gutting – by Keeping Them Safe™.

But what distinguishes this latest vote is that this pretext is unavailable. Nobody can claim with a straight face that allowing AT&T and Comcast to sell their users’ browser histories has any relationship to national security. Indeed, there’s no minimally persuasive rationale that can be concocted for this vote. It manifestly has only one purpose: maximizing the commercial interests of these telecom giants at the expense of ordinary citizens. It’s so blatant here that it cannot even be disguised.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/29/to-serve-att-and-comcast-congressional-gop-votes-to-destroy-online-privacy/

Approximately half of adult Americans’ photographs are stored in facial recognition databases that can be accessed by the FBI, without their knowledge or consent, in the hunt for suspected criminals. About 80% of photos in the FBI’s network are non-criminal entries, including pictures from driver’s licenses and passports. The algorithms used to identify matches are inaccurate about 15% of the time, and are more likely to misidentify black people than white people.

These are just some of the damning facts presented at last week’s House oversight committee hearing, where politicians and privacy campaigners criticized the FBI and called for stricter regulation of facial recognition technology at a time when it is creeping into law enforcement and business.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/27/us-facial-recognition-database-fbi-drivers-licenses-passports

The FBI took fire from privacy advocates and members of Congress Wednesday over how it characterizes its face recognition program, which has allowed agents to access and algorithmically match the photos of tens of millions of Americans — including innocent people who have never been charged with a crime.

At a hearing convened by the House of Representatives’ government oversight committee, experts and lawmakers pressed an FBI representative on the agency’s misrepresentation of the program’s scope, as well as its refusal to audit the accuracy of systems responsible for matching vast databases of photos with criminal suspects.

http://www.vocativ.com/413934/fbi-facial-recognition-program/

As The Intercept reported on March 2, Palantir is building a $41 million data platform called Investigative Case Management that allows ICE agents, including those in the agency’s primary deportation force, the Enforcement and Removal Office, to query information across several large government databases simultaneously. Documents newly obtained by The Intercept state that Palantir software also permits ICE agents to access information from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Investigative Case Management makes available to its users a separate ICE system, also built by Palantir, called FALCON. This system was created for ICE’s office of Homeland Security Investigations, which is generally tasked with pursuing serious cross-border crimes like drug trafficking, child pornography, and terrorism, but has also been behind some of the most controversial deportation actions under Trump and Obama.

HSI agents can use FALCON, a customized version of Palantir’s Gotham software, to pull data from offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other sources that include information on foreign students, family relationships, employment information, immigration history, criminal records, and home and work addresses.

According to a set of FALCON funding documents from 2013 that were obtained by The Intercept, immigration officials can also use FALCON to access data held by agencies that possess highly classified intelligence, including the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/17/palantir-enables-immigration-agents-to-access-information-from-the-cia/

William Binney on wiretapping claim: "President Trump is absolutely right!"

IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT is deploying a new intelligence system called Investigative Case Management (ICM), created by Palantir Technologies, that will assist in President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants from the United States.

In 2014, ICE awarded Palantir, the $20 billion data-mining firm founded by billionaire Trump advisor Peter Thiel, a $41 million contract to build and maintain ICM, according to government funding records. The system is scheduled to arrive at “final operating capacity” by September of this year. The documents identify Palantir’s ICM as “mission critical” to ICE, meaning that the agency will not be able to properly function without the program.

ICM funding documents analyzed by The Intercept make clear that the system is far from a passive administrator of ICE’s case flow. ICM allows ICE agents to access a vast “ecosystem” of data to facilitate immigration officials in both discovering targets and then creating and administering cases against them. The system provides its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and an array of other federal and private law enforcement entities. It can provide ICE agents access to information on a subject’s schooling, family relationships, employment information, phone records, immigration history, foreign exchange program status, personal connections, biometric traits, criminal records, and home and work addresses.

https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-engine-for-donald-trumps-deportation-machine/

A federal judge in Illinois refused Monday to dismiss a class-action lawsuit claiming Google illegally collects face geometry scans from photographs taken on its smartphones without users’ knowledge.

Lead plaintiff Lindabeth Rivera alleges a photo taken of her on a Google Android device was automatically uploaded to the company’s cloud-based service, Google Photos, where her facial features were scanned to create a unique face template without her consent.

Co-plaintiff Joseph Weiss says Google used photographs from his Android device to “unlawfully create a face scan.”

On behalf of a proposed class, Rivera and Weiss accuse the company of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act because the photos were taken by Google devices in the Prairie State.

http://www.courthousenews.com/judge-oks-claims-google-face-scans/

In this WhoWhatWhy Podcast, Jennifer Granick, the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, talks to Jeff Schechtman about the technology that tracks and stores emails and follows personal movement, about the amassing and mining of metadata, and how all this information is used and misused by the government.

https://whowhatwhy.org/2017/02/27/many-times-government-spied-today/

Palantir has never masked its ambitions, in particular the desire to sell its services to the U.S. government — the CIA itself was an early investor in the startup through In-Q-Tel, the agency’s venture capital branch. But Palantir refuses to discuss or even name its government clientele, despite landing “at least $1.2 billion” in federal contracts since 2009, according to an August 2016 report in Politico. The company was last valued at $20 billion and is expected to pursue an IPO in the near future. In a 2012 interview with TechCrunch, while boasting of ties to the intelligence community, Karp said nondisclosure contracts prevent him from speaking about Palantir’s government work.

“Palantir” is generally used interchangeably to refer to both Thiel and Karp’s company and the software that company creates. Its two main products are Palantir Gotham and Palantir Metropolis, more geeky winks from a company whose Tolkien namesake is a type of magical sphere used by the evil lord Sauron to surveil, trick, and threaten his enemies across Middle Earth. While Palantir Metropolis is pegged to quantitative analysis for Wall Street banks and hedge funds, Gotham (formerly Palantir Government) is designed for the needs of intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security customers. Gotham works by importing large reams of “structured” data (like spreadsheets) and “unstructured” data (like images) into one centralized database, where all of the information can be visualized and analyzed in one workspace. For example, a 2010 demo showed how Palantir Government could be used to chart the flow of weapons throughout the Middle East by importing disparate data sources like equipment lot numbers, manufacturer data, and the locations of Hezbollah training camps. Palantir’s chief appeal is that it’s not designed to do any single thing in particular, but is flexible and powerful enough to accommodate the requirements of any organization that needs to process large amounts of both personal and abstract data.

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/22/how-peter-thiels-palantir-helped-the-nsa-spy-on-the-whole-world/

A retail store in St. Louis called Motomart is demanding customers submit to having their faces scanned before they're allowed entry!

Think about what that means, police are identifying every single customer using DHS's national REAL ID program .

According to a Fox2Now article, once it gets dark, employees put up signs that say: “Facial Recognition Software in Use - Please Look at Above Camera for Entry.”

Make no mistake, when stores start demanding to scan our faces to gain entry, we've entered into a privacy nightmare.

Why aren't people boycotting Motomart? Do we really want police tracking our every movement?

http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2017/02/retail-store-demands-everyone-submit-to.html

Researchers have recently developed the first reliable technique for websites to track visitors even when they use two or more different browsers. This shatters a key defense against sites that identify visitors based on the digital fingerprint their browsers leave behind.

State-of-the-art fingerprinting techniques are highly effective at identifying users when they use browsers with default or commonly used settings. For instance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's privacy tool, known as Panopticlick, found that only one in about 77,691 browsers had the same characteristics as the one commonly used by this reporter. Such fingerprints are the result of specific settings and customizations found in a specific browser installation, including the list of plugins, the selected time zone, whether a "do not track" option is turned on, and whether an adblocker is being used.

Until now, however, the tracking has been limited to a single browser. This constraint made it infeasible to tie, say, the fingerprint left behind by a Firefox browser to the fingerprint from a Chrome or Edge installation running on the same machine. The new technique—outlined in a research paper titled (Cross-)Browser Fingerprinting via OS and Hardware Level Features—not only works across multiple browsers. It's also more accurate than previous single-browser fingerprinting.

Fingerprinting isn't automatically bad and, in some cases, offers potential benefits to end users. Banks, for instance, can use it to know that a person logging into an online account isn't using the computer that has been used on every previous visit. Based on that observation, the bank could check with the account holder by phone to make sure the login was legitimate. But fingerprinting also carries sobering privacy concerns.

https://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2017/02/now-sites-can-fingerprint-you-online-even-when-you-use-multiple-browsers/

Vizio, one of the world’s biggest makers of Smart TVs, is paying $2.2 million to settle charges that it collected viewing habits from 11 million devices without the knowledge or consent of the people watching them.

According to a complaint filed Monday by the US Federal Trade Commission, Internet-connected TVs from Vizio contained ACR—short for automated content recognition—software. Without asking for permission, the ACR code captured second-by-second information about the video the TVs displayed. The software collected other personal information and transmitted it, along with the viewing data, to servers controlled by the manufacturer. Vizio then sold the data to unnamed third-parties for purposes of audience measurement, analysis, and tracking.

https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2017/02/07/vizio-smart-tvs-continuously-tracked-viewers-without-consent/