The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown
significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software
to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media,
videoconferences and other communications, the N.S.A. documents reveal. Agency
officials believe that technological advances could revolutionize the way that
the N.S.A. finds intelligence targets around the world, the documents show. The
agency’s ambitions for this highly sensitive ability and the scale of its
effort have not previously been disclosed.
The agency intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about
55,000 “facial recognition quality images” — which translate into “tremendous
untapped potential,” according to 2011 documents obtained from the former
agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. While once focused on written and oral
communications, the N.S.A. now considers facial images, fingerprints and other
identifiers just as important to its mission of tracking suspected terrorists and
other intelligence targets, the documents show.
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