The real FBI facial recognition project
The New Scientist has an article on the FBI's Next Generation Identification (NGI) program.
It started out as a project to replace the old fingerprint database, but will now include biometrics, DNA, voice prints, and facial recognition.
The idea is to database all the mugshots so people can be quickly identified after arrest, or possibly so surveillance video could be compared to the database to identify possible suspects.
Obviously lots of civil liberties issues here, but still a very long way from the paranoid hollywood inspired rantings about real time global surveillance with integrated biometrics.