This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, April 13th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Department of Homeland Security wants drones that can recognize your face and track

individuals over long distances.

Matthew Feeney, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, says there are several reasons

why that technology should concern anyone who cares about liberty and privacy.

So in the past we know that the Department of Homeland Security has used drones that were

originally designed for military use.

Many listeners will be aware that in our ongoing adventures abroad we use predator drones and some of those drones have made it back to the homeland where they are used by the Department of Homeland

Security for border surveillance.

They have not been particularly effective in conducting this kind of surveillance.

A Office of Inspector General report from a few years ago found that this program was very

expensive and that these drones were responsible for very few apprehensions of people crossing the border

illegally as well as drugs.

And last summer, DHS issued a solicitation asking for companies to build for them drones that would have a range

of sensors and these drones are going to be much, much smaller.

They'll be more like the hobby drones that you or I could buy at a store.

But interestingly, they want these drones to not only provide surveillance for up to three miles,

the ability to track targets persistently, they also noted that they would like these drones to be equipped with facial recognition software which raises a wide range of pretty significant privacy issues.

So and other biometrics?

Depend in it.

What might those be?

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