Neither Congress nor state legislatures have authorized the development of such a system, and growing numbers of Democratic and Republican lawmakers are criticizing the technology as a dangerous, pervasive and error-prone surveillance tool.
“Law enforcement’s access of state databases,” particularly DMV databases, is “often done in the shadows with no consent,” House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said in a statement.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the Oversight Committee’s ranking Republican, seemed particularly incensed during a hearing about the technology last month at the use of driver’s license photos in federal facial-recognition searches without the approval of state legislators or individual license holders.
“They’ve just given access to that to the FBI,” he said. “No individual signed off on that when they renewed their driver’s license, got their driver’s licenses. They didn’t sign any waiver saying, ‘Oh, it’s OK to turn my information, my photo, over to the FBI.’ No elected officials voted for that to happen.”
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