23 Oct 2008

Interpol Details Plans For Global Biometric Facial Scan Database

Global security authorities are to push for a huge biometric facial scan database of international travellers so they can cross-check everyone against a database of terror suspects, international criminals and fugitives.

Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, is planning to expand its role into the mass screening of passengers moving around the world by creating a face recognition database to catch wanted suspects, reports the London Guardian.

The database will hold the records of every citizen who has ever travelled in and out of the virtually every country in the world, representing intelligence agency style bulk interception of information and sounding alarm bells for civil liberties groups.

Two months ago we reported on the moves underway to phase out passport control officers at airports and replace them with biometric face scanning cameras. The automated face recognition gates match passengers to a digital image stored on a microchip in the new e-passports.

Interpol wants a facial database to be linked into this technology and used in conjunction with its already existing fingerprint and DNA databases, according to Mark Branchflower, head of Interpol's fingerprint unit.

Steve Watson, Infowars.net