Police Still Using Matrix-Type Database
An AP newswire article by David Royse, via ABC Technology News, reveals that:
When the federal government in April stopped funding a database that lets police quickly see public records and commercially collected information on Americans, privacy advocates celebrated what they saw as a victory against overzealousness in the fight against terrorism.
But a few states are pressing forward with a similar system, continuing to look for ways to quickly search through a trove of data from driver's license photos to phone numbers to information about people's cars. Their argument in seeking to keep the Matrix database alive in some form: it's too important for solving crimes to give up on.
Florida, Ohio, Connecticut and Pennsylvania still use software that lets investigators quickly cull through much of the data about people that reside in cyberspace. However, without the federal grant for the Matrix data-sharing system, they won't be routinely searching through digital files from other states at least for now.
Privacy advocates still don't like the idea, saying government shouldn't have easy access to so much information about people who haven't done anything wrong.
posted by Fergie @ 7/10/2005 04:42:00 PM
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