Interoperable and standardized algorithmic images: The domestic war on drugs and mugshots within facial recognition technologies

Beginning in the 1990s, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) leveraged the 1980s’ American War on Drugs to improve and expand facial recognition technology (FRT) infrastructure, including the domestic building of FRTs reliant on mugshots. When examining mugshot databases gathered by the NIST, such as the Multiple Encounters Dataset (MEDS) I and II (2010) and Special Database 18 Mugshot Identification Database (SD-18) (2016), it is clear that the same gendered and racialized dynamics present in policing practices related to the War on Drugs is reflected in the mugshot databases that continue to use for FRT research and evaluation into the contemporary moment. This paper details the SD-18 and MEDS databases, as well as the MORPH database, showcasing how their representational, technical and political protocols operate. The desires for frictionless interoperability built into the images’ technical protocols supersede concerns for eugenic political and representational protocols, resulting in a current moment where the deployment of mugshot datasets cannot be contained to their original intended use with FRTs, but leak into other forms of algorithmic governance as well as into algorithmic image-making and visual culture, including generative artificial intelligence systems such as DALL-E.