State and Federal governments in Australia have built their own facial recognition software. We need a contract soon otherwise this is going to happen globally.
Straight from the AFR: States set to green light national facial recognition system
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with the AFP Tactical Response Team on Wednesday. Andrew Meares
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by Phillip Coorey
Federal police will soon be able to instantly identify anyone walking into a shopping centre, sporting stadium, airport or other public space, after the states indicated they would hand over driver licence photos to establish a beefed-up national facial recognition system.
State and Territory leaders indicated on Wednesday they would comply with the request when they meet Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Canberra Thursday for a special Council of Australian Government's meeting devoted to harmonising and boosting counter-terrorism laws.
The powers have been specifically requested by the Australian Federal Police and other agencies to keep up with what they say is an escalating and evolving domestic terrorism threat.
Other changes likely to be agreed to include a nationally uniform period of 14 days for which a person as young as 14 can be detained without charge. This would bring the other states up to par with NSW which already has a 14 day detention period. The period of detention has to be approved by a magistrate.
As well, there will be agreement to establish new Commonwealth offences to criminalise terrorism hoaxes and the possession of instructional terrorist material, much in the way possession of child pornography is an offence, even it there is not intent to abuse a child personally.
The facial recognition technology, known as the National Facial Biometric Matching Capability, can match a face with a photo already on file but it is not instantaneous.
Anyone with a passport is already on file but the government wants to enhance the database by including all the driver licence photos stored by individual states. Presently, federal authorities can request such a photo from the states but that can take several days.
The new expanded database will enable real time recognition of millions of people who each day appear on CCTV in shopping malls, airports and other public spaces. Alternatively, if a suspect is apprehended, they can be directly photographed by police and instantly identified.
Mr Turnbull said CCTV footage was already used to help investigate terrorism incidents.
"So, having a national database so that can all be integrated and accessed in real time is, I think, a logical next step," he said.
"Drivers' licences are accessible now and are accessed. What we need to do is to make them immediately available, combine them with other biometric data like passport photographs for example, that the Commonwealth has, so that we're in a position to identify people in real time.
"Imagine the power of being able to identify, to be looking out for and identify a person suspected of being involved in terrorist activities, walking into an airport, walking into a sporting stadium?"
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said the change was needed to keep pace with villains.
"This is about bringing automation to something that we already do. It's automation that we need to keep up with the contemporary environment that we've seen," he said.
"The ability for somebody to assume an identity, the ability for someone it take on an alias, create documentation, is real. So this really is about how can we get identity verification as quickly as we possible can."
The government acknowledged people would have privacy concerns but stressed the information was already available.
Justice Minister Michael Keenan said "not one extra piece of extra data is being collected under this".
Labor leader Bill Shorten also gave in-principle support for the measure.
"Biometric technology can be a real addition in terms of keeping Australians safe," he said, adding Labor wanted to seer the final detail first.
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