ICE ran facial recognition searches on millions of Maryland drivers' photos without court approval; activists say they're targeting immigrants

ICE has done facial recognition searches on millions of photos Maryland drivers without court approval. They appear to be targeting immigrants who sought driver's licenses after 2013.

The access sought by Maryland state officials "goes far beyond what other states allow and that alarms immigration activists in a state that grants special driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants," report Drew Harwell and Erin Cox at the Washington Post:

More than 275,000 such licenses have been issued statewide since 2013, when the state became the first on the East Coast to defy federal guidelines and allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a license without having to provide proof of legal status. The technology now under scrutiny could let an ICE official run a photograph of an unknown person through the system and see if any potentially undocumented immigrants are returned as a match.

"It's a betrayal of immigrants' trust for the [state] to turn around and let ICE run warrantless searches on their faces," said Harrison Rudolph, a senior associate at Georgetown University Law School's Center on Privacy and Technology. "It's a bait-and-switch. " ICE is using biometric information in the shadows, without government notice or public approval, to hunt down the most vulnerable people."

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ICE has run facial-recognition searches on millions of Maryland drivers[washington post via techmeme.com]