Ten federal agencies — the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury and Veterans Affairs — told the Government Accountability Office they intend to grow their facial recognition capabilities by 2023, the GAO said in a report posted to its website Tuesday.
Most of the agencies use face-scanning technology so employees can unlock their phones and laptops or access buildings, though a growing number said they are using the software to track people and investigate crime. The Department of Agriculture, for instance, said it wants to use it to monitor live surveillance feeds at its facilities and send an alert if it spots any faces also found on a watch list.
The government’s expansion comes as major tech companies have pushed to stall law enforcement’s adoption of the software. Amazon said in May that it had stopped selling its facial recognition software Rekognition to U.S. police, citing the lack of federal laws governing how the software should be used. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
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