the nsa ’s facial recognition program is separate from the agency ’s bulk metadata collection program , which collects information such as which phone call — neither of which can be collected without a warrant .
facial recognition software , the documents cited in the report note that the nsa also relies on commercially available facial recognition tech , including pittpatt — a company owned by google — to process the data it is harvesting .
the newspaper reports that the agency intercepts “ millions ” of images per day — including social media , email , messaging , videoconferencing and other types of online comms .
here ’s another reason to think twice before you post photos of yourself on the internet : the new york times reported sunday that the national security agency collects millions of photos each day from electronic communication and analyzes them as part of a major facial recognition technology to identify individuals .
a report in the new york times , based on documents from 2011 obtained by the nsa whistleblower edward snowden , reveals that the us security agency ’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly under the obama administration — coinciding with a rise in popularity of taking and tagging self portraits on online social networks .
the 2011 documents show that agency officials believe technological advances in facial recognition software could revolutionize the way the nsa finds intelligence targets around the world .
according to the leaked documents obtained by the times , of the millions of images it collects daily , the nsa harvests about 55,000 that it considers to be “ facial recognition quality .
for its part , an nsa spokesperson tells the times that the agency ca n’t get at driver ’s job easier by producing a mountain of tagged online data to feed its facial recognition algorithms .
the nsa describes facial recognition technology as offering “ tremendous untapped potential ” for tracking intelligence targets .