In an all-too-common move seeing counterterror technology developed and deployed for domestic law enforcement use, the government is investing heavily in the development of facial recognition surveillance technology.

As Charlie Savage reported in the New York Times:

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[The crowd scanning] research began as an effort to help the military detect potential suicide bombers and other terrorists overseas at “outdoor polling places in Afghanistan and Iraq,” among other sites, the documents show. But in 2010, the effort was transferred to Homeland Security to be developed for use instead by police.

Now, as Savage reports, the government is investing heavily in improving crowd scanning surveillance technology, which is at present "slow and unreliable."

Via the NYT:

Significant progress is already being made in automated face recognition using photographs taken under ideal conditions, like passport pictures and mugshots. The FBI is spending $1 billion to roll out a “Next Generation Identification” system that will provide a national mugshot database.

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The information about the technology was obtained originally (via FOIA) by a privacy advocate, who expressed concerns about the mission creep of counter-terror instruments into quotidien civilian life: