An advanced research arm of the U.S. government's intelligence community is looking to develop AI capable of tracking people across a vast surveillance network.

As reported by Nextgov, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has put out a call for more information on developing an algorithm that can be trained to identify targets by visually analyzing swaths of security camera footage.

The goal, says the request, is to be able to identify and track subjects across areas as large as six miles in an effort to reconstruct crime scenes, protect military operations, and monitor critical infrastructure facilities.

The US government wants to track subjects using cameras across a vast network using an algorithm that is trained on other human subjects

To develop the technology, IARPA will collect nearly 1,000 hours of video surveillance from at least 20 camera networks and then, using that sample, test various algorithms effectiveness.

The agency's interest in AI-based surveillance technology mirrors a broader movement from governments and intelligence communities around the globe, many of whom have ramped up efforts to develop and scale systems.

Facial recognition in particular has seen a flurry of interest from law enforcement throughout the last several years.

As reported by the Washington Post, some law enforcement agencies now have the ability to use facial recognition software to assess mugshots of criminals, or in some cases even police sketches, and match those images with security footage.

In U.S. airports, facial recognition software has been particularly popular, with the Department of Homeland Security planning to roll out what it calls the 'biometric exit' in nearly all major air travel hubs across the country over the next several years.

The idea mimics methods used in China to track its citizens using cameras. A recent report shows that the county's program has gone even further. Stock image

The technology would use pictures of passengers face to monitor their travel and run their face profile against national databases.

IARPA's proposed system would go a step above those facial recognition applications, however, looking to identify subjects across multiple cameras and conditions.

Perhaps the broadest known application of advanced AI surveillance has taken shape in China, where camera networks monitor hundreds of thousands of faces every day in search of suspected terrorist, many of whom happened to be of a particular ethnic minority, the Uyghurs.

In a recent report from Human Rights Watch, the organization details how the AI systems have been coupled with an Orwellian 'app' that also tracks subjects blood type, height, vehicle registration, medications, and more to deem whether or not a person is 'dangerous.'

In the report, the organization warns that technology used to monitor citizens in China could be easily exported to the rest of the world, constituting a dangerous breach of human rights and privacy.