Fingerprints as a source of determining who did a crime without that person already being linked to that crime by other means was until very recently nonexistent.
It still is. It is very rare for a complete set of fingerprints to be left by a criminal.
No police department could go through tens of thousands, or more, of fingerprint cards manually trying to link a set to one on record.
True.
Even with computerized matching, fingerprinting as a method to ID a criminal as a primary means of catching them can take days of time and is more rarely used than most people believe.
It is still not used as a primary means of catching criminals. It can be used as evidence in a court that a someone was at the scene of a crime. Depending on the completeness of the prints left, and their quality, that evidence will have different weight to a jury.
Biometric ID isn't the problem per se.
It is a problem. Biometrics change. Fingerprints can change simply due to a cut on the finger that hasn't healed properly, or the loss of a finger entirely.
Electronic scanners are easily fooled by fake fingerprints, or even by differences in moisture content on the finger at a time.
It's when such databases are linked to computers and automated surveillance that it does.
Such as in a Las Vegas casino? Yup. all these things are used there.
I once reported to a pit boss of an altercation between two people in the parking garage that was becoming violent. Despite these two being outside the view of any cameras there, security was easily able to find them from the description of the location I gave. From that moment I reported the incident, I moved across the Casino to play poker. Security was easily able to locate me, take me aside, and thanked me for my report, and to tell me the resolution of it. The other players saw this and immediately assumed I was cheating at poker or something. When I sat down again, there was suddenly new respect for me at that table!
Do you want to know how many hands I won simply by bluffing from that point on? It was hilarious!
What happens when public security cameras and such scan every face for a match to a database to place a particular person at some location?
Already happens in Las Vegas casinos, and a lot of indian casinos as well.
On the street in the cities, there are a LOT of security cameras around, most of them privately owned and operated. Yes, people do submit their video to the police when a crime is committed in their vicinity. That DOES get used in court.
Nabbed several of these violent thugs in Seattle this way!
That's the real danger here.
A danger? No.
The problem with Big Brother is who is watching the watchers, and who is watching those watching the watchers? How many watchers do you need to watch the population at large? A lot more than you think!
Most videos you see submitted to courts are from privately owned security cameras at some store or business. Government can't even accurately tell what's going on outside of their traffic cameras, or even much of the time can't even see what is actually causing a traffic jam.
Casinos are not only watching the players, they are watching the dealers. It is the dealers that have their hands on the money. To a dealer, that camera can be your best friend, or your worst enemy. Follow the law and deal a straight game and no one can touch you.
Out in the suburbs, and out in the country, there are of course few cameras. We did nab a car prowler on our street using my neighbor's porch mounted security camera recently though. This lower had been stealing stuff in the area for several blocks around. It was to feed his drug habit. He's currently serving time in the Monroe State Penitentiary. Life sentence. Turned out this was his third conviction for a felony.
I found that people's lives in general is a pretty boring thing to track and watch. I have worked surveillance before. To get an idea of how pointless it all is worrying about this, watch Penn and Teller's Bullshit episode on this very topic. Can it be abused? Yes. Is it always abused? No. I think you will find that those who abuse it don't get anywhere with it.