Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: A pilot program underway at the FBI is providing new investigative tools for the Bureau and its law enforcement partners.

I’m Mollie Halpern of the Bureau, and this is FBI, This Week.

The Next Generation Facial Recognition Pilot makes it possible to conduct image-based searches of the FBI’s national repository of photographs. The database contains only mug shots—pictures law enforcement takes during the booking process. David Cuthbertson is the assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services…

David Cuthbertson: We certainly do not store photographs obtained from other sources such as social media.

Halpern: Only authorized criminal justice agencies can submit requests for queries. The searches are processed without human involvement.

Cuthbertson: The candidates returned to the submitting agency are then used to conduct further analysis to determine if their suspect is actually identifiable with one of the return candidates.

Halpern: Privacy concerns are built into the process. The program will be fully implemented in 2014.

For more information on the FBI’s use of biometrics, visit www.fbi.gov