FBI's facial recognition system can access 411 million photos

The EFF pointed out that the "unprecedented number of photographs" isn't the only problem. GAO's report also said that the FBI didn't test its system thoroughly for accuracy. It "has done little to make sure that its search results... do not include photos of innocent people," the nonprofit org wrote in its post. Since facial recognition technologies aren't perfect and still has issues recognizing people of color, FACE could return results with law-abiding people in the mix when law-enforcement agencies use the system to search for suspects. It could cause even more issues if the government grants the feds' request for its databases to be exempted from several key provisions of the Privacy Act. For instance, the FBI doesn't want to tell people who ask if they're in the database and wants to be legally allowed to withhold that information.