"Combat Zones That See"

The latest (and greatest) development from DARPA, the folks who long ago inadvertently gave rise to the Internet: a computer system "capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face."

Read all about it in this AP piece that ran in the Cincinnati Enquirer. A snippet:

Scientists and privacy experts - who have seen face-recognition technology used at a Super Bowl and monitoring cameras in London - are concerned about the potential impact of the emerging DARPA technologies if they are applied to civilians by commercial or government agencies outside the Pentagon.

"Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst.

DARPA spokeswoman Jan Walker dismisses those concerns. She said the Combat Zones That See (CTS) technology isn't intended for homeland security or law enforcement and couldn't be used for "other applications without extensive modifications."