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There's a television ad that stands out in my memory from when I was a kid (80s). The camera pans across patrons at a diner and the voiceover is about how a kidnapped child was recovered as the camera stops on a young girl (~8yo). The child is described, but the child the camera landed on has different features (hair dyed, cut, whatever). The explanation for how she was identified is that her fingerprints were on file. The message? Get your children fingerprinted!

In adulthood, I've often thought back to that ludicrous ad. No child's fingerprints are getting checked unless some foul play is already suspected. The likelihood that the child would fall into police custody and get checked is already slim; fingerprints aren't going to help until that happens. We don't have campaigns to fingerprint children as a proactive precaution today (of which I'm aware). Clearly, that wasn't a major breakthrough in reuniting kidnapped children with their parents that endured.

I'm very cynical, but I've always thought that was a campaign to gather biometrics from the population using fear as a motivator. I don't necessarily think this is that, but I can't help wondering the perverse incentives of the FBI as I'm reminded of the ad.

I remember this! I got finger printed at some event where police had a booth next to the fire dept (who were espousing bike helmets and teaching kids how to properly wear one etc, actually useful safety info). It wasn't until I was a teenager when my first car was broken into and the speakers stolen that I realized how useless that endeavor must be. The officer who responded (my first time calling the police, not running from them!) was pretty upfront with me. As he took finger prints from the area where the door was jimmied, I was like "cool, finger printing!" and he told me this wouldn't likely lead to anything. First he said "You'll never get your speakers back, even if we found them we wouldn't call you, they'd probably be in a lot of all kinds of other stolen stuff and it's impossible to sort through and return stolen items." Bummer number one. Then he explained that the finger prints would only be useful if the thief got picked up for doing something else, he wasn't going to go run the prints and try to find the person etc like I was probably imagining (I was, I admit, thinking that's what happened when they took finger prints - thanks TV). Standing in my driveway I flashed back immediately to that finger printing booth where my parents were told it would help if I got kidnapped, and thought "Oh great, I'm in the system." Not that I had a life of crime in mind, but the internet of the early 90s really gave me a healthy distrust of being tracked, logged, etc. (Oh if we only knew the hellscape ahead.)
I got bonded (Police background checks with fingerprinting etc) for a job which had a large cash handling component. dealing with > 100K in twenties and fifties in a Casino. My prints were kept for elimination after the process, but the police were very eager to inform me that they don't get kept past two years.

The police had petitioned the government under the guise of privacy laws to make sure they had to throw away the records. Which seems counter intuitive until you realize it'd require me to go through the same process again at a later date. More money for them.

I've less fear of my biometrics being tracked than I do of rent seeking behavior from public officials.

Fingerprints aren't even particularly useful here.

Our irises are considerably more information-dense, accessible and stable over time as evidenced by the famous identification of Sharbat Gula: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~jgd1000/afghan.html

A close-up photo should be enough to reliably identify a person years after they went missing.

Yep, I remember getting fingerprinted at a mall. Thanks to my folks for preemptively snitching.
My parents were paranoid about kidnappings. It was like perfect social engineering on my parents' generation with TV movies like Adam - the story of John Walsh's son who was kidnapped and beheaded:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085136/

My parents had me and my siblings watch that movie with them - it is still unsettling to me thinking about it.

And then the FBI contacted my school and provided a voluntary program for parents to have their children fingerprinted. From my memory 95%+ of kids all lined up in my school and got fingerprinted to "protect them from kidnapping".

It honestly seems surreal - looking back it sure seems like a black ops campaign to get biometric data on a large portion of the U.S. youth population.

This was a very big thing in the late 80s apparently. Our local Kiwanis Club had provided IDs for parents in the community who wanted them. They just had a photo of the child with some other physical descriptions like eye color and birthmarks. Still, kind of a local, analog version of this, but without the dystopian bent.

I agree, this feels more creepy than useful/helpful service.

If it was a ad, was a company involved? Sending biometrics to any company should always make someone think twice.
I'm not sure that's relevant to this. This app just makes it easier to give police or security the information they ask for if you lose your child (note not necessarily kidnapped), like a photo, age, and height. And they claim the info is only stored locally. Maybe that claim is false, but if it was, then once that was discovered it would probably cause a lot of legal and PR problems for the FBI.
I remember that as well. Just assumed that the unstated reason was to assist in identifying deceased kids.
Low grade corruption ...and here's why:

The FBI is understaffed, misdirected & underfunded for its real mission, which I would argue must be fighting public corruption, organized crime and counter-espionage. Any objective analysis would conclude the Bureau has been politicized and its resources have been directed at operations, investigations and training that does not fulfill its core mission.

The bad PR and mistrust the FBI has earned in recent years is the public product of what I'm describing, and the solution is not mobile apps of marginal utility made to make the Bureau look good. No, the solution is arrests of corrupt politicians, crime bosses & spies.

Its not just the FBI suffering from feel/look good boondoggles. The Air Force struggles with hypersonics but excels at new uniform design. The DOT is a leader in equity & diversity, but has failed to upgrade & regulate rail infrastructure & procedures that make derailments a regular occurrence.

Tax revenues have been their highest in decades, possibly longer. We deserve better.

Clearly the optimal solution is RFID subdermal microchipping for all children, isn't it? Technology exists for boosted RFID (basically a tiny battery and solar PV linked to the RFID tag) which should work under the skin fairly well. Then install scanners at all public venues and schools, and link to the NSA database out in Utah, so that everyone can be safely location-tracked at all times. Removing the chip would of course be a felony.

Why stop there? Facial recognition, retina scan, DNA marker databases... a personalized AI minder for each troublesome human being (oh, that's your Alphabet/Meta tracker & recommendation algorithm, isn't it)?

This of course is all for the safety of the children and the FBI would never dream of using it to spy on citizens for political reasons, or implement a Chinese style social-credit system, or to ensure you're watching your daily dose of Orwellian positivity content.

Initially I thought that it would be satire, then I recognized the domain. I have a weird feeling about this, but can't put a finger on it.
What's the point in this app? Surely most mothers/fathers have pictures of their kids on their phone these days anyway
> Please read your mobile provider’s terms of service for information about the security of applications stored on your device.

Is this weasel words? Apple already has some terms about being able to scan things locally before "potential upload", no?

It says a lot about the FBI that most people's initial reaction is "whats the trick here?". BOTH sides of the political aisle too.
There's a funny rendering problem with the pdf brochure where their assurance that it's not collecting information is split up and pasted in the wrong places. Making the document start with this sentence: "collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app".

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/child-id-app-brochure.pd...

> The FBI is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app.

So what's the advantage of using this vs. the photos you probably already have of your child, and a notes app for recording height and weight?

why does the inner cycnic in my think this is just to get some facial recognition data
I am not a fan of this idea. My preference would be that parents could use an open source application and store-bought kit to gather/store datapoints on their children fingerprint kit, iris scan, DNA gathering and if/when something bad happens the parents can share the data with the appropriate law enforcement agencies that are actually involved in the case. There would also need to be data retention/destruction laws on the books that mandates when the copy of the data must be destroyed by law enforcement and serious consequences for a law enforcement agency should they side step the data retention requirements.

Anything short of this feels like a catch-all extension of ID.me and hospitals now gathering DNA from babies without the parents knowledge or consent. Children can not consent to their data being captured in this manor. This should be a role of parents and they should be securely storing this data in my very less than humble opinion. One copy on-site and one copy in a bank safety deposit box and/or one copy stored off-site with a relative, ideally someone legally designated as an emergency legal guardian.

You can't remember this info or write it down? The normal photos on your phone can't be sent to authorities?

Seems like an app to fix a nonexistent problem.

FBI seems to be making the best out of their recent partnership with Clearview AI.

https://iapp.org/news/a/fbi-agrees-to-licensing-contract-wit...

Can’t wait to decompile their Android apk tomorrow. I’m curious how FBI codes Android.
The words FBI and Child so close together make me a bit squeamish.
Scully: Why would the aliens ONLY abduct people who installed the FBI app on their phones?

Mulder: They must have a mole inside the Bureau!

Skinner: If you go down this road I can't protect you.

Smoking man: smokes

"An important note: The FBI is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app."

Thanks for answering the question we all had, FBI.

Nice try, FBI.
> An important note: The FBI is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app. All data resides solely on your mobile device unless you need to send it to authorities.

I'd believe that about as far as I can throw it.

This is a good idea. Im not a parent but volunteer as a Big Brother for a 10 y/o. Keeping important docs/covid vax card/photos etc in one place for easy retrieval is a win. Hopefully it works well..
Or just take photos of your child in advance and call 911 if they go missing.
News media has driven fear and fear will drive authoritarianism.
Going by the version history, this app has been around for over a decade. You'd think in that time they would have changed the exceptionally hideous app icon.
2.4/5 on Apple's App store...

The UI needs a lot of work going by the screenshots, it doesn't look appealing and there's some obvious contrast issues

Janie and Johnny Doe don't feel very appropriate as examples in this context.
Interesting idea. Not sure how well it will be adopted by the public though...
judging by the photo I'm guessing this will be available for the iPhone 5
It's just me or their logo is cheesy as floor.
It says:

We're sorry... The request has been blocked.

"The FBI is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app."

Anyone in the market for a bridge?

WTF, literally!
is this a joke?
Troll level: FBI.
when's the FBI going to start charging Epstein's clients? I'll use their app when they start arresting those people instead of hiding their identities
Fraudulent bureaucracies leave fossil trails.. and 80 million supporters to harvest.
> The FBI is not collecting or storing any photos or information that you enter in the app. All data resides solely on your mobile device unless you need to send it to authorities.

If true, this sounds thoughtfully designed.

While i understand the skepticism, at least they are trying to streamline a process. a quick search reveals the startling statistic:

Every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. Approximately 840,000 children are reported missing each year. having access to rapid id/photo. Minutes are precious. I'm no expert but + for fbi, minus for the cynics. Just my 2 cents