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Police at all levels have been using driver license data bases for decades. And anyone who gets one – or a state ID – knows the information isn’t going to be kept from the cops or feds.
Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents, and e-mails over the past five years, obtained through public-records requests by Georgetown University researchers and provided to The Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.
Police have long had access to fingerprints, DNA, and other ‘‘biometric data’’ taken from criminal suspects. But the DMV records contain the photos of the majority of a state’s residents, most of whom have never been charged with a crime.
FBI, ICE use driver license photos without owners’ knowledge or consent - The Boston Globe
State driver's license databases prove valuable for FBI, ICE for facial-recognition searches @ State driver's license databases prove valuable for FBI, ICE for facial-recognition searches: report
