ICE runs facial recognition searches on Maryland driver’s licenses

Today in corrosive public policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been running warrantless facial recognition searches of Maryland driver’s licenses allegedly as a way to hunt down undocumented immigrants, according to a report from The Washington Post.

Why Maryland? In 2013, the state passed a bill that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, a policy intended and proven to increase public safety. The state has issued more than 275,000 of these licenses to date.

ICE says that it mostly conducts the license searches to look for child exploitation or cybercrime and that it does not “routinely” use it for immigration enforcement. However, immigrant activists reportedly began to suspect something was amiss when ICE conducted raids on individuals who had recently obtained the special licenses.

Experts see the move as a betrayal of trust for a vulnerable population that attempted to abide by state safety laws. Database searches like these could force these individuals further underground.

ICE is able to search DMV licenses in Maryland because state law allows federal agencies to access a broad state database without a warrant. The idea being that facial recognition could match an individual to a profile or a group that ICE is searching for. However, experts say that the technology is so prone to error — especially when identifying people of color — that it could cause agents to go after the wrong individuals.

Maryland lawmakers are attempting to pass a bill that exempts ICE from searching the database without a warrant. 

“We don’t want to do anything that impedes criminal law enforcement investigations,” Delegate Dana Stein told the Washington Post. “It’s unfair for individuals who have been law-abiding — even though they are technically undocumented — who have built families and built businesses to be picked up and deported without any notice just because they got a driver’s license. It’s bad public policy.”