The program will replace fingerprint system, it is just Phase 1 of many

Critics warn the recognition system is ineffective and has low success rate

Detectives will be able to search 52m faces by 2015, it currently holds 8m

The FBI's facial-recognition surveillance system that can pick out suspects from a crowd is now 'fully operational', officials announced today.

Programmers have been working for three years to install the Next Generation Identification system in 18,000 bureaus across the country and compile more than eight million mug shots.

By 2015, detectives will be able to use its in-built Interstate Photo System (IPS) to trace at least 52 million people - including innocent citizens.

Complete: FBI detectives can now use the Next Generation Identification system to recognise a criminal in any crowd using a database of more than 52 million images. It has taken three years to develop the system

'Ineffective': Critics have condemned the Interstate Photo System for only having an 85 per cent success rate

It will also feature a notification system called Rap Back, which will give investigators live updates of any given criminal's movements.

The program has sparked outrage among privacy groups who warn it is the final step on the way to becoming a surveillance state.

Critics have also condemned the IPS as 'ineffective' since it has a low success rate.

The NGI offers a list of 50 candidates for each face selected - but there is only an 85 per cent chance the suspect is on the list, according to HyperVocal.

The system, which will ultimately replace the nationwide fingerprint database, is just the first of many phases in a bid to modernize US detective work.

FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers in June: 'We’re piloting the use of mug shots, along with our fingerprint database, to see if we can find bad guys by matching pictures with mug shots.'

But he admitted he was not sure where the pictures were coming from, amid claims driving license pictures as well as police mug shots would be used.

'I don’t think so. The Next Gen Identification, as I understand it, is about mug shots,' Comey said, according to Arstechnica.

HOW COULD THEY FIND YOU? If you apply for any type of job that requires fingerprinting or a background check, your prints are stored by the FBI in its civil print database. However, the FBI has never before collected a photograph along with those prints. This is changing with NGI. Now an employer could require you to provide a 'mug shot' photo along with your fingerprints. If that’s the case, then the FBI will store both your face print and your fingerprints along with your biographic data. Advertisement

'I think there is some circumstances in which when states send us records, they’ll send us pictures of people who are getting special driving licenses to transport children or explosive materials or something—but as I understand it, those are not part of the searchable Next Generation Identification database.'

The FBI has been piloting the program with a company called MorphoTrust since February 2011.

MorphoTrust has also produced a State Department facial recognition database holding some 244 million images.

The system builds on the FBI’s legacy fingerprint database, which already contains well over 100 million individual records, and has been designed to include multiple forms of biometric data, including palm prints and iris scans in addition to fingerprints and face recognition data.

NGI combines all these forms of data in each individual’s file, linking them to personal and biographic data like name, home address, ID number, immigration status, age, race, etc.

The database is shared with other federal agencies and with the approximately 18,000 tribal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the United States.

By 2012, NGI already contained 13.6 million images representing between 7 and 8 million individuals, and by the middle of 2013, the size of the database increased to 16 million images.

The new records reveal that the database will be capable of processing 55,000 direct photo enrollments daily and of conducting tens of thousands of searches every day.

The new system also link criminal and non-criminal fingerprint databases.

Every record—whether criminal or non—will have a Universal Control Number (UCN), and every search will be run against all records in the database.

Phases: 18,000 bureaus across the nation have installed the recognition database, which is now ready to use

Blasting the system, the Electronic Frontier Foundation - a group protesting for privacy rights regardless of technology developments - warned: 'This means that even if you have never been arrested for a crime, if your employer requires you to submit a photo as part of your background check, your face image could be searched — and you could be implicated as a criminal suspect — just by virtue of having that image in the non-criminal file.'

It says the new system raises major privacy concerns.

'NGI will allow law enforcement at all levels to search non-criminal and criminal face records at the same time.

'This means you could become a suspect in a criminal case merely because you applied for a job that required you to submit a photo with your background check.

'Second, the FBI and Congress have thus far failed to enact meaningful restrictions on what types of data can be submitted to the system, who can access the data, and how the data can be used.