In a move which can evidently be seen an indication that the US government is increasingly keen on tracking the residents in the country, the FBI has commenced the rollout of its $1 billion biometric Next Generation Identification (NGI) system.

The NGI system being rolled out by the FBI is essentially a country-wide database of voice recordings, DNA samples, palm prints, iris scans, mug shots, iris scans, and other biometrics which have been collected from over 100 million US residents, with the key aim of identifying as well as arresting criminals.

The launch of the NGI system – which technically marks a $1 billion upgrade of the FBI's national fingerprint database - will bring about a notable transformation in the manner in which the FBI fights crime, as the program compares the surveillance images to the photos of notorious criminals so as to assist the agents in nabbing the suspects.

Specifically speaking, the high-tech NGI system works in two ways --- firstly, it matches an image with the massive FBI database of mug shots to pin down the criminals; and, secondly, it tracks the suspects in surveillance video-recording by working on their faces in a crowd.

With the FBI already having pilot-tested the NGI system in a number of states, it is being expected that by the time the program is fully deployed in the year 2014, it will apparently comprise a mammoth database which will include the facial photos of at least 12 million people!