Facial recognition, a technology often seen in fictional "CSI" scenarios, will soon be used to fight real-life crime as the FBI implements it across the country.
Working through a computer-based system, facial recognition identifies people by matching them to a database, according to a CNN report.
The technology can be used for everything from battling terrorists to paying bills in a way that is simple and easy. But will people object to the privacy invasion?
Some experts believe that the convenience will win over everyone.
"The more people get out of it, the more they'll surrender to it," Manolo Almagro, senior vice president of digital for TPN Inc., told CNN.
For the FBI, facial recognition is central to the $1 billion Next Generation Identification System, which is "a state-of-the-art biometric identification system that also includes iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification," CNN reported.
The agency aims to use the system to fight terrorist and criminal activity by furthering both identification and criminal history information.
One supporter of the identification technology is Dr. Chris Solomon, a U.K.-based professor who created an "electronic sketch artist" system that is now used by 90 percent of British police.
The system provides computer-generated faces, letting witnesses choose the best and worst matches to compile information about a suspect.
"The key advantage here is that it allows people to respond to faces they see rather than having to break it down into component parts," Solomon described the system.
While the FBI's plans will help to fight crime, any system that works through facial recognition is likely to be opposed by privacy advocates.
When Facebook unexpectedly rolled out a recognition system that identified users in photos, regulators in the European Union banned the functionality, forcing the social network to turn it off.
Facebook is possibly the biggest privacy hazard in the world since it has so many users. With such a large database, the site could be compromised and its information used by the government, said Amie Stepanovich, the director of the domestic surveillance project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C.
"No matter how much a company attempts to protect your privacy, if they're collecting information about you, that information is vulnerable to government search," Stepanovich said in an NPR interview.
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