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Watchdog Says FBI Has Access to About 640M Photographs

June 6, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

A government watchdog says the FBI has access to about 640 million photographs — including from driver’s licenses, passports and mugshots — that can be searched using facial recognition technology.

The figure reflects how the technology is becoming an increasingly powerful law enforcement tool, but is also stirring fears about the potential for authorities to intrude on the lives of Americans. It was reported by the Government Accountability Office at a congressional hearing in which both Democrats and Republicans raised questions about the use of the technology.

Why Does Alexa Save Transcripts of User Conversations? This Senator Asked Amazon

May 24, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

A Democratic senator sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Thursday requesting information about why the company retains transcripts of conversations recorded by Amazon Echo devices, even after users have pressed “delete.”

Amazon’s voice-controlled operating system Alexa transcribes the conversations it picks up after users say a “wake word” — “Alexa,” “Echo,” “Amazon” or “computer” — or press a button to enable the Echo, according to a report by CNET. And the company saves those text files on its servers even after users opt to “delete” the audio files from the cloud, a CNET investigation revealed.

Voice-Print Technology Monitors Inmates’ Calls in Florida

May 16, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

A sophisticated voice-identity technology that monitors inmates on prison telephones has been installed in at least 23 Florida counties and has been used to bring criminal charges against inmates in at least one of them, a Fresh Take Florida investigation found.

The technology produced by a secretive, Dallas-based company is designed to make and store voice prints of inmates and to ensure they are using prison phones under their own identities, rather than secretly making calls using the IDs of other inmates.

San Francisco Just Banned Facial-Recognition Technology

May 15, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

San Francisco, long one of the most tech-friendly and tech-savvy cities in the world, is now the first in the United States to prohibit its government from using facial-recognition technology.

The ban is part of a broader anti-surveillance ordinance that the city’s Board of Supervisors approved on Tuesday. The ordinance, which outlaws the use of facial-recognition technology by police and other government departments, could also spur other local governments to take similar action. Eight of the board’s 11 supervisors voted in favor of it; one voted against it, and two who support it were absent.

Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police

April 16, 2019/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

The tech giant records people’s locations worldwide. Now, investigators are using it to find suspects and witnesses near crimes, running the risk of snaring the innocent.

FBI Scientist’s Statements Linked Defendants to Crimes, Even When His Lab Results Didn’t

February 28, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

Court records and FBI Lab files show statements by prosecutors or Richard Vorder Bruegge, the most prominent member of the Forensic Audio, Video and Image Analysis Unit, veered from his original conclusions in at least three cases.

Close Enough: Police Departments Are Using “Reverse Location Search Warrants” to Force Google to Hand Over Data on Anyone Near a Crime Scene

February 20, 2019/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

On the night of March 16, 2017, the city of Raleigh, North Carolina suffered its biggest fire in a century. The flames scorched 10 buildings, including churches and businesses. A seven-story apartment complex, then under construction, was reduced to ashes. The fire ultimately caused $50 million in damages.

Over the next year, authorities investigated the fire but seemed to struggle to determine its cause. According to a report by local NBC affiliate WRAL, the Raleigh police went to extreme lengths to find out if an arsonist may have set the blaze. Investigators served a search warrant to Google, asking that the company to provide the coordinates of any phones that were in the area between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on the night of the fire. It was likely for naught—police ended up classifying the cause of the fire as “undetermined.”

Prisons Across the U.S. Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated People’s Voice Prints

February 7, 2019/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

ROUGHLY SIX MONTHS ago at New York’s Sing Sing prison, John Dukes says he was brought out with cellmates to meet a corrections counselor. He recalls her giving him a paper with some phrases and offering him a strange choice: He could go up to the phone and utter the phrases that an automated voice would ask him to read, or he could choose not to and lose his phone access altogether.

Dukes did not know why he was being asked to make this decision, but he felt troubled as he heard other men ahead of him speaking into the phone and repeating certain phrases from the sheets the counselors had given them.

Amazon Facial-Identification Software Used by Police Falls Short on Tests for Accuracy and Bias, New Research Finds

January 31, 2019/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

Facial-recognition software developed by Amazon and marketed to local and federal law enforcement as a powerful crime-fighting tool struggles to pass basic tests of accuracy, such as correctly identifying a person’s gender, research released Thursday says.

Sheriff: State Privacy Laws ‘Have Not Kept Pace’ with Technology

January 30, 2019/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

With new technology like smart devices and facial recognition, lawmakers are weighing ways to balance privacy rights with law enforcement investigations.

The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee Wednesday workshopped how to balance protecting an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy, guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, while not hindering law enforcement’s investigative power.

Read more and listen.

Florida Court: Prosecutors Had No Obligation to Turn Over Facial Recognition Evidence

January 29, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

A Jacksonville man argued he had a right to see photos of other potential suspects returned in a police search that relied on controversial biometric technology. The court disagreed.

The FBI Says Its Photo Analysis Is Scientific Evidence. Scientists Disagree.

January 25, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

The bureau’s image unit has linked defendants to crime photographs for decades using unproven techniques and baseless statistics. Studies have begun to raise doubts about the unit’s methods.

Your Vehicle Black Box: A ‘Witness’ Against You in Court

January 18, 2019/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

Odds are your vehicle is equipped with an Event Data Recorder, also known as a vehicle black box. And, your local police department is now fully equipped to retrieve and analyze the black box data and use it against you in court.

Cato Institute 2018 Surveillance Conference

January 16, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

The legendary spymaster James Jesus Angleton called the world of intelligence a “wilderness of mirrors,” and rarely has that description seemed as apt as it does in 2018. President Donald Trump rails against a “deep state” embedded within the very intelligence agencies over which he now presides—even as former intelligence leaders claim that it’s Trump who has sought to politicize intelligence. In U.S. v. Carpenter, the Supreme Court handed down a seminal Fourth Amendment ruling that could dramatically reshape electronic privacy law—but what it will mean in practice remains radically uncertain. Meanwhile, technology companies ranging from social media platforms to manufacturers of the connected devices that constitute the “Internet of Things” have struggled with how to balance users’ privacy against their own business interests and the surveillance demands of governments around the world.

Join the Cato Institute—and an array of top experts, technologists, and policymakers—for a probing examination of these issues and many more as we seek to navigate the wilderness.

Donald Trump and the “Deep State”

Michael Glennon, Tufts University
Susan Hennessey, Brookings Institution & Lawfare
Kate Martin, Center for American Progress
April Falcon Doss, Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP
Patrick Eddington, Moderator, Cato Institute

Flash Talks

Looking for a Backdoor Down Under: Australia’s War on Encryption Sharon Bradford Franklin
Who’s Watching the Kids: Social Media Surveillance of Students Rachel Levinson-Waldman
A Million Little Eyes: Building Networks for Facial Recognition Surveillance Jake LaPerruque
Spot the Surveillance: A Virtual Reality Tool Dave Maass
Low-Hanging Fruit: Evidence-Based Solutions to the Digital Evidence Challenge Jennifer Daskal

Privacy Not Included: Rating the Creep-Factor of Networked Appliances Heather West

Panopticon of Things: Networked Appliances as Surveillance Devices

Andrew Ferguson, University of the District of Columbia
Hannah Quay-de la Vallee, Center for Democracy and Technology
Heather West, Mozilla
Matthew Feeney, Moderator, Cato Institute

Flash Talks

Watching the Watchers—Facebook Transparency Edition Alexandra Galloway
Watching the Watchers—Google Transparency Edition David Lieber
Watching the Watchers—FOIA Transparency Edition Jesse Franzblau
New Proposals for Law Enforcement Access to Encrypted Communications Matthew Green

High-Tech Cameras That Recognize People Are Coming to Broward Schools

January 10, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

The next time you step onto a Broward County school campus, the video camera may be able to watch and remember your movements.

The Broward County School District plans to install a $621,000 surveillance system that includes technology that can recognize people.

Hillsborough Robbery Case Raises Cell Phone Privacy Questions

January 8, 2019/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

The case of a man suspected of burglary in Hillsborough County is the latest in a string of cell phone-related cases that could further define privacy rights in a digital world.

Taphone Prince is refusing to give investigators the passcode to his Alcatel 7 cell phone even after a judge issued a warrant for its contents.

Jeff Brandes Files Cell Phone Privacy Bill

December 27, 2018/in Attorney, Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

State Sen. Jeff Brandes has again filed a bill that would protect individuals’ privacy contained on cell phones and other electronic devices as well as GPS location data.

The bill would require a warrant to access electronic information from a person suspected of a crime. A warrant is not currently required to search such electronic data.

We Broke Into a Bunch of Android Phones With a 3D-Printed Head

December 19, 2018/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

Facial recognition is cropping up everywhere. From shopping malls to the workplace, it’s likely something is scanning your face every day. But rather than invade your privacy, facial recognition on smartphones is supposed to protect your digital life from snoops.

If you’re an Android customer, though, look away from your screen now. We tested four of the hottest handsets running Google’s operating systems and Apple’s iPhone to see how easy it’d be to break into them. We did it with a 3D-printed head. All of the Androids opened with the fake. Apple’s phone, however, was impenetrable.

FBI Admits Vastly Inflating Number of Unsearchable Mobile Devices

December 10, 2018/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

For seven months, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray argued that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies needed “exceptional access” to be built into mobile devices, such as cellphones and tablets. To justify his argument, he said that in 2017 the FBI had been “unable to access the content of approximately 7,800 mobile devices using appropriate and available technical tools, even though there was legal authority to do so.”

He referred to the rapid increase in the number of unsearchable devices the bureau was encountering as “Going Dark,” claiming it would eventually result in law enforcement being unable to access any mobile device even with a valid court order.

Evaluating the Use of Automated Facial Recognition Technology in Major Policing Operations

December 6, 2018/in Digital Forensics News, News /by Forensic Competency

Academics at Cardiff University have conducted the first independent academic evaluation of Automated Facial Recognition (AFR) technology across a variety of major policing operations.

The project by the Universities’ Police Science Institute evaluated South Wales Police’s deployment of Automated Facial Recognition across several major sporting and entertainment events in Cardiff city over more than a year, including the UEFA Champion’s League Final and the Autumn Rugby Internationals.