and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> i think the industry is a mess, and i think the impact that it has on real people is just unconscionable. >> kroft: unconscionable because as many as 40 million americans have a mistake on their credit report-- that, according to a new government study. and our own investigation of the credit reporting industry shows those mistakes could be nearly impossible to get removed from your record. so, really, you can't do anything for me? i've just been talking to you for 15 minutes. yeah, i mean, the only thing you can do is to fill... tell me to fill it out online?

>> yes. mr. kroft. >> stahl: over the last ten years, the ability of computers to identify faces has gotten 100 times better, a million times faster, and exponentially cheaper. >> to use face recognition, use the color-coded button on your remote. >> stahl: facial recognition is already in some of our home appliances like tvs. >> hi, tv. >> stahl: and big business is free to do this kind of surveillance, while government has all kind of restrictions. >> joseph atick: what's unique about face recognition is the fact that you can do it surreptitiously, from a distance, and continually. >> stahl: it can happen, we don't even know. >> atick: that's the point. >> cooper: the nile crocodile can grow up to 20 feet long and weighs as much as a car. they are patient and stealthy killers that drag their prey into the water, where they drown and dismember them. hundreds of people are killed every year. why would we go diving with them?

to learn more about africa's largest and most feared predator face to face. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." hey love. [off screen] there you are. [speaking german]

hi, grandpa! [off screen] give me a kiss! [speaking mandarin] what do you think? do you like it? [off screen] happy birthday! can you see that? [speaking polish] [off screen] did he apologize? [off screen] thanks, micah! [off screen] bye, guys. bye. see ya. oh my god! every day, more people connect face to face on the iphone than any other phone. i miss you. [ bell dings ] [ bell dings ] ♪

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records, our medical history, our internet traffic and, most importantly, our credit information. a mistake on your credit report can cost you money-- it can increase the interest you pay on loans, prevent you from getting a mortgage or buying a car, landing a job, or getting a security clearance. it's not uncommon. and as we first reported in february, a government study indicated that as many as 40 million americans have a mistake on their credit report; 20 million have significant mistakes. and our own investigation of the credit reporting industry shows that those mistakes can be nearly impossible to get removed from your record. consumer credit reporting is a $4-billion-a-year industry, dominated by three large companies-- experian, transunion and equifax. they keep files on 200 million americans and traffic in our financial reputations. they make their money gathering

information from people we do business with, and selling it to banks, merchants, insurance companies, and employers, and they use it to make judgements about our creditworthiness and reliability. but now, the reliability of the industry is being questioned in an eight-year federal trade commission study. jon leibowitz is the chairman. >> jon leibowitz: here's what we found. some pretty troubling information. one out of five americans has an error on their credit report, and one out of ten has an error on their credit report that might lower their credit score. >> kroft: i'm trying to think of another industry where a 20% error rate would be acceptable. that's a pretty high error rate. >> leibowitz: it's a pretty high error rate. >> mike dewine: i think the more we look at this and the more the american people know about this, the madder they're going to get. >> kroft: ohio attorney general mike dewine has opened his own investigation into the credit reporting industry, which, for

years, has blamed mistakes on banks and merchants that provide them with bad information. but dewine argues that the fault lies with the industry for what he says are clear violations of the fair credit reporting act. do these companies have a legal responsibility to make sure that the information is accurate? >> dewine: the federal law says that if you believe that there is a mistake, you can go to them and they have an obligation to do a reasonable investigation. they're not doing a reasonable investigation. they're not doing an investigation at all. >> kroft: every day, dewine's office fields calls from desperate constituents who can't get the credit reporting agencies to answer their questions or correct mistakes on their report, like paid bills listed as delinquent, closed accounts listed as open, and bad debts that belong to other people with similar names or social security numbers. >> dewine: the problem is not that they make mistakes; it's they won't fix the mistakes.

it literally is like this-- you know, guy behind the curtain in "the wizard of oz." you really don't know what he's doing. it really is a secret operation that is so hard to crack. >> kroft: eight million people a year file disputes about their credit report, which usually requires a visit to the experian, transunion or equifax web sites. they are primarily designed to sell you premium products, not resolve a dispute, which is what i was trying to do. there's a toll-free number you can call, which is likely to connect you to someone on a faraway continent. >> kevin: thank you for calling. my name is kevin. how may i help you? >> kroft: where are you located? >> kevin: india. >> kroft: india? but regardless of where they are or who you talk to, they won't be much help. >> kroft: so, really, you can't do anything for me. i've just been talking to you for 15 minutes. i mean, the only thing you can do is to tell me to fill it out online. >> yes, mr. kroft. >> kroft: okay, thank you. besides the toll-free number,

they also give you a post office box address where you can send a letter and documents supporting your claim. in each case, it's extremely unlikely that anyone with the authority to resolve your dispute will ever actually see it. ask sandra cortez, a california accountant whose credit report confused her with an international drug trafficker. it took her five years to get it fixed. or david smith, a retired army officer, whose credit report listed a bankruptcy that wasn't his and triggered a foreclosure proceeding against his house in south carolina. he is still dealing with the fallout. or judy thomas, a trauma nurse with a horror story worthy of hitchcock or kafka. >> judy thomas: there's nobody to go to. there's nobody. you just keep making phone calls and you just keep writing disputes and you keep sending them your social security number, and they don't care. >> kroft: thomas, who manages two medical centers near cleveland, says it all began in

1999 when she went shopping for a new dress and applied for a store credit card to get a 15% discount. she was denied. was that the first time you'd ever been denied credit? >> thomas: yes, very first time. >> kroft: ever? >> thomas: ever, ever. >> kroft: but certainly not the last. it became a regular occurrence. the personal credit reports she got from experian, transunion and equifax were all clean and without blemish. yet she kept getting rejected and couldn't find out why. >> thomas: i would get a consumer report and it would look fine. i would go to the bank, and they would tell me, "oh, no, you have all this debt." but no one would tell me what was on there. >> kroft: they wouldn't tell you what the debt was, and they wouldn't give you a copy of the report that they had? >> thomas: no. no. >> kroft: it took judy thomas several years to discover what almost no one knows-- that the credit reports the agencies send to you are different than the ones they sell to banks, merchants, and mortgage brokers. and she only found that out when

a loan officer left her file on his desk and walked out of the room. and what did you see? >> thomas: i saw debt from utah medical center. i saw debt from a veterinarian clinic in utah. i saw collections for a judith kendall. >> kroft: judith kendall, not judy thomas? >> thomas: correct. >> kroft: what's going through your mind? >> thomas: what the hell's she doing on my credit report? what the hell is her debt doing on my credit report? >> kroft: you'd think this would be a fairly simple thing to get straightened out? >> thomas: you would think. yeah, you would think. this is my "judy thomas versus judith kendall" file. >> kroft: instead, it became a six-year battle with credit agencies, requiring boxloads of correspondence to try and prove that she was judy thomas, not judith kendall, all to no avail. you got a lot of time invested in this. how important are these documents? >> thomas: it's my life. >> kroft: there are logs of daily phone calls to dispute

centers, hundreds of letters to experian, equifax and transunion, even correspondence from judith kendall's creditors in utah, acknowledging that the debts on her credit report aren't hers. >> thomas: i would get letters back from these companies, saying, "this, in fact, is not you." >> kroft: you still couldn't get it off your credit report? >> thomas: no, i sent copies to the credit bureaus. and they... and they would come back as mine, verified, verified. i also hired an... a local attorney to try and straighten it out. we had everything certified, that this is judy thomas. this is where i live. i've never gone by the name of kendall. i've never even been to utah, let alone owing a cable company in utah. >> kroft: and what happened? >> thomas: nothing. >> kroft: nothing? >> thomas: nothing. >> kroft: what kind of problems did this cause for you? >> thomas: i couldn't... i couldn't refinance. i couldn't take advantage of the interest rates. i couldn't get a new... i

couldn't get a car. i couldn't... i couldn't cosign for my children's student loans. and i'd worked hard for my credit, i was... and these people were taking it away from me. >> kroft: finally, judy thomas took the only recourse available to her. she sued equifax and transunion in federal court. and after a year-long battle, the credit reporting agencies settled for an undisclosed sum and promised to clean up her file. did you think it was going to take a federal lawsuit? >> thomas: heck, no. it just takes-- it just takes a human being going, "wow, this isn't judith kendall. let me fix this." that's all they had to do. >> kroft: but as we discovered, that almost never happens. if you challenge a credit report and mail your information to a post office box in the united states, the dispute will likely be investigated in india, or the philippines, or south america. we traveled 5,000 miles to the chilean capital of santiago,

where we tracked down three former experian employees. carolina hererra, rodolfo carrasco and enzo valdivia were all dispute agents at experian's national consumer assistance center, although they say they weren't able to offer consumers much assistance. so, if somebody had a problem with their credit report, they would send the complaint, and it would end up with you? >> yeah. oh, yeah. >> kroft: so how many of these did you have to do a day? >> rodolfo carrasco: 90. >> kroft: 90? >> carolina hererra: 90, yeah. >> kroft: did you consider yourself investigators? >> no. >> kroft: did you have any way to investigate these claims? >> hererra: no, we didn't. you can't call the person. >> kroft: you can't pick up the phone and call them? >> no. >> kroft: did you have phones? >> no. no. >> kroft: could you email them? >> no. >> kroft: did you have the authority to say, "wait a minute," after looking at somebody's file, and say that, you know, "this is a... somebody made a mistake. this person doesn't owe this money"? >> carrasco: we didn't have that power. >> kroft: all they did was read the disputes and reduce them to a two digit code, like "never

late" or "not mine". it was then sent with a two- or three-line summary and no documentation back to the bank or department store that furnished the original information. if there was a difference of opinion between the creditor and the person who was filing the complaint, how... was it usually resolved in the... in favor of the creditor? >> enzo valdivia: yeah. the creditor was always right. >> carrasco: mostly, we took for granted the word of the bank. if the bank said, "hey, this guy owes $100," so it is. >> silvia goldsmith: none of us have ever interviewed anybody in chile from experian. we've got a federal court ordering them to bring these people forward, and we're still waiting. >> kroft: much of what's known about the inner workings of the consumer credit agencies comes out of lawsuits filed by len bennett and sylvia goldsmith, who have subpoenaed company records and deposed employees and executives. they say, under the current system, there is no way for people like judy thomas to get their problems solved.

so all these people who take the time to meticulously document a case that the bill isn't theirs or the bill has been paid-- that is never seen by anybody? >> len bennett: it's not seen by anyone who considers it in determining whether or not information will be removed from a credit report. >> kroft: it's not forwarded on to the person who has the complaint with you? >> bennett: no. it is never forwarded on, never forwarded on to the creditor. >> goldsmith: we can get a jury verdict for $1 million. that's chump change to some of these bureaus. they would rather pay a verdict in $1 million than to actually go in and change the policies and procedures that they have, because that's much more expensive to them. >> bennett: i can say this. without qualification, the dispute procedures used by the credit reporting agencies-- uniformly used-- completely fail to comply with the fair credit reporting act. courts have found that. the federal trade commission has found that. it's not even a close call.

>> kroft: ohio attorney general mike dewine agreed. >> dewine: i think the industry's a mess. and i think the impact it has on real people is just unconscionable. >> kroft: you think they're breaking the law? >> dewine: i think they're breaking the law. there is no doubt in my mind they are breaking the law. >> kroft: we wanted to talk to equifax, transunion and experian. but like most consumers, we were unsuccessful. the agencies referred us to the spokesman for their lobbying group in washington. he too declined our request for an on-camera interview, but he did provide a written statement citing an industry-sponsored survey that showed 95% of its customers were satisfied with the dispute process. the industry maintains it's in compliance with federal law. and one final update-- in february, jon leibowitz stepped down as chairman of the federal trade commission. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by:

>> good evening. wall street is looking towards thursday's u.s. gross domestic product reading, expected to show the economy grewed a a mottest 2.2% last quarterment delinquent student loan debt now exceeds delinquent credit card balances. gas prices steadied this week, down a dime in a month. jim axelrod. cbs news.

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>> stahl: over the last ten years, the ability of computers to identify faces has gotten 100 times better, a million times faster, and exponentially cheaper, yet facial recognition technology is still a work in progress. while investigators in the boston marathon bombing in april had multiple images of both suspects, the technology did not come up with a match. they were not identified by their faces but by their fingerprints. authorities won't say what went

wrong. but one possibility is that government databanks, through which the photos would've been searched, are not big enough. but as we first reported in may, the f.b.i. is working on expanding its database, businesses are tapping facial recognition to sell us stuff, and computer scientists are upgrading the technology. so, here it comes! oh, my. this may look like a high school science project, but this is carnegie mellon's cylab, a world-class research center. look at that! marios savvides and his students outfitted this ordinary toy drone with their new advanced facial recognition software that locks in on a face from a distance and then identifies it. >> drone: hello, lesley. nice to see you again. >> stahl: it got it. the students are taking surveillance technology to the next level. they can now turn a blurry face into a clear one, a flat image

into a 3d model. oh, my goodness. their technology can take a masked face and, by focusing only on the eyebrows, search a catalogue of faces, come up with several people with very similar eyebrows, and eventually find the identity of the person. >> marios: so, utzav is going to take a normal photograph of you. >> stahl: the software maps a face using dots like electronic measles and creates something as unique as a fingerprint-- a faceprint. this is your facial recognition technology working right now to find me? >> utzav: yes. >> stahl: for this demonstration, they had added my picture ahead of time to the university's database. >> marios: that's the top match. >> to use face recognition, use the color-coded button on your remote. >> stahl: facial recognition is already in some of our home appliances, like tvs. >> hi, tv. >> stahl: in our mobile devices, pins and passwords are giving way to faceprints.

and the technology can single us out in real time as we go about our daily business, often without us ever knowing. >> joseph atick: what's unique about face recognition is the fact that you can do it surreptitiously, from a distance, and continually. >> stahl: it can happen, we don't even know. >> atick: that's the point. >> stahl: joseph atick was one of the first scientists to develop facial recognition software. 20 years ago, he was just about to give up on it when... >> atick: i opened up the door to my lab, and what i heard in a metallic voice-- "i see joseph." that was the moment... >> stahl: the computer said "i see joseph" because it took your picture. >> attick: it detected my presence in the room, it found my face, and then it recognized that "this was joseph." and so, i started screaming and invited other people in the lab to come in and see, and the computer started alternating from "i see joseph" to "i see paul" to... >> stahl: but atick fears he helped create a monster, and

it's headed to the mall. >> john anderson... >> stahl: in "minority report," tom cruise is bombarded by ads recognizing him and telling him what to buy. that's still science fiction, but companies are racing to develop digital billboards for shopping malls that, without your being aware of it, scan your face to tell your gender and age. we found this promotional video by intel online showing how this would work. >> is the viewer a teenage girl? then change the content to highlight a back-to-school shoe promotion a few stores down. is it a senior male? then why not tell him about the golf club sale at the sporting goods store? >> stahl: and now, mannequins! a few national chains are installing them with facial recognition as a way to covertly profile their customers. as for identifying us as individuals, well, several companies are working on it,

like hitachi of japan, as seen in this online sales video. >> the system can automatically detect a face from either surveillance footage or a regular photo and search for it. >> atick: big brother is no longer big government; big brother is big business. >> stahl: and big business is free to do this kind of surveillance, while government has all kinds of restrictions. so, there are rules for law enforcement, government, military, but no rules for commerce? >> atick: commerce. no rules for commercial companies. >> stahl: there are in europe, where laws require companies to get your consent before they collect your faceprint. but not in the u.s., where regulation is lagging far behind the technology. meanwhile, some of the biggest companies online are busily building banks of faceprints. if you've been tagged on facebook, chances are they have your faceprint on file. google and apple also make faceprints.

>> atick: my identity, my faceprint should be recognized as my property. my face is as important as my financial records, as my health records. it's very private to me. >> stahl: what do you mean, our faces are private? we're out in the street. >> atick: absolutely. >> stahl: we're walking around. closed-circuit cameras all over the place. are they really private? >> atick: our faces are private in the sense that my face does not walk around with a tag saying "i'm joseph atick" in the street. >> stahl: but marketers are working not just on linking our faces on the street to our names, but to our online profiles with our personal data and shopping history. we used to worry about privacy on the web; now we have to worry about privacy just walking around. >> atick: the link is between the online and offline persona is becoming possible, and that's... >> stahl: because of our faces. >> atick: yes, because of our faces. exactly. >> stahl: with security cameras ever present, some people are already thinking up countermeasures.

>> atick: artists, very clever artists have now begun to create new forms of anonymity by creating patterns that would interfere with face recognition algorithms. so, they can go down the street and this system cannot recognize them. >> stahl: we'll all wear masks. the veil will come here. >> atick: the veil might come here. >> stahl: short of wearing a burka, we may all one day become tom cruise at the mall because marketers who track us as we shop online and send us ads want to do that as we shop in the real world. we found a company that's figured out how to do that. >> david mcmullen: a customer would just walk into an establishment like this, just like normal. >> stahl: david mcmullen is the c.e.o. of redpepper, a nashville marketing firm developing an app called facedeals. as we walk into a bar, this camera identifies me using facial recognition. >> mcmullen: and this will actually be the moment when... i got a deal. how did you... >> stahl: i got... i don't know. something just came up on my phone here. ( beep ) oh, my. look at that. "welcome, lesley.

get a free diet coke with a purchase of a caesar salad." my, my. my cell phone knew i liked diet coke because in the three seconds it took to walk in, the camera at the door matched my faceprint to my facebook profile, where redpepper mined my shopping history and facebook "likes" to send me the perfect deal. they did that only after i "opted in" or explicitly gave them permission. but if you're queasy about trading your privacy for a diet coke, mcmullen says we've already given up our privacy-- cameras in stores, our phones with g.p.s. locators, and our credit cards all know where we are when we shop. >> mcmullen: all these things are tracking us. what benefit do we get from it? what control do we have over it? not much. >> stahl: so, they know we're in the store anyway. >> mcmullen: that's right. >> stahl: and they're not offering us anything. >> mcmullen: that's correct. >> stahl: companies tracking us

by our faces may seem a little like spying. well, since so many of us have one of these, we may soon be able to spy on each other. >> alessandro acquisti: the ability of remaining anonymous is shrinking, and the places where we can be anonymous are getting fewer and fewer. >> stahl: alessandro acquisti is a professor at carnegie mellon who does research on how technology impacts privacy. he says that smartphones may make "facial searches" as common as google searches, and he did an experiment to show how easy it could be. he took photos of random students on his campus. he then ran the pictures through a facial recognition program he downloaded for free that sifted through facebook profiles and other web sites, and he was able not only to identify many of them instantly, he also got their personal data, including, in some cases, their social security numbers. in order for this to work, does the person you're trying to identify have to be on one of these social networks?

>> acquisti: you must have, somewhere on the internet, a face with your name on it. >> stahl: well, let's say someone doesn't have a facebook account, but his or her daughter or son does and they've got your picture. so, are they now automatically in the mix? >> acquisti: it's funny because one of the participants before doing the experiment told us, "you're not going to find me because i'm very careful about my photos online," and we found him because someone else had uploaded a photo of him. >> stahl: but if an academic can easily mine our data with facial recognition, what about the government? well, the government has a problem because, to be effective, facial recognition requires a good database. facebook, for instance, has one with billions and billions of photos; the government, not nearly that many.

and so, the fbi is now assembling on these rows of servers the largest biometric database on earth, costing over $1 billion. showing the system for the first time publicly, fbi assistant director david cuthbertson demonstrated how police detectives might use it when it's fully up and running next year. >> david cuthbertson: this would be the person, the photograph of the person they are trying to identify. >> stahl: he used a picture of a deceased criminal. >> cuthbertson: and so, we're submitting the photograph into the system, and it's looking through 12.8 million mug shots in the current system. the fbi has been collecting photographs along with arrest fingerprints for a number of years. this is the first time that anyone's been able to search against those using facial recognition technology. >> stahl: you've seen this on cop shows, but actually, it hasn't been possible to do on a national scale in real time until now.

will you have a picture of every single american? >> cuthbertson: no. absolutely not. just people who've been arrested. >> stahl: but why doesn't the fbi just download pictures from facebook or linked-in, since there's no law saying they can't. >> cuthbertson: there's maybe no legal barrier, but no legal authorization. >> stahl: you couldn't just do it because you wanted to? >> cuthbertson: no, ma'am. i would have lawyers lining up outside my door. >> stahl: so, why are so many privacy experts up in arms over what you're doing if you're so restricted by rules and regulations and codes? >> cuthbertson: i think we get lumped into other factors, other uses of facial recognition, whether they be commercial, social media. we're all kind of in this thing together. >> stahl: you can't forget that it begins with all the information we feed so freely and perpetually onto the internet-- likes, purchases, searches, not to mention our faces.

>> aquisti: often, we are not even aware of how much data we are actually revealing or is being gathered about us or, in fact, how it would be used. the idea that you can start from a face and predict social security numbers from that face seemed quite alien and surprising, but now we know that it can be done. >> stahl: so, there's no place to hide, absolutely no place to hide. >> aquisti: it's... those places are shrinking. >> welcome to the cbs sports update presented by pacific life. at the barclays, first leg of the fedex cup playoff, adam scott with a final round 66 wins it by one over tiger woods, justin rose. and in nfl news, matt leinart signs with the buffalo bills while the raiders announce terrelle pryor will start thursday's preseason finale as the team restst injured

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>> cooper: of all the different species of crocodiles in the world, africa's nile crocodile is the most dangerous and deadly. they can grow up to 20 feet long, weigh as much as a car, and bite as hard as a tyrannosaurus rex. crocodiles are prehistoric creatures that have been around since the time of dinosaurs, but we still don't know a lot about them because studying them up close on land is treacherous, and underwater has always thought to be impossible. as we reported last march, two wildlife filmmakers in botswana in southern africa have found a way to get up close to crocs in the murky water of the okavango delta. the images they've captured are some of the most remarkable

wildlife scenes we've ever seen. the okavango delta has been called one of the last edens on earth. the hundreds of miles of winding waterways and untouched islands are home to some of africa's most exotic and enchanting wildlife. it's also home to tens of thousands of nile crocodiles. for the last five years, brad bestelink and his wife andy crawford have been risking their lives filming these man-eaters in the most daring way imaginable-- following the crocodiles into their underwater lairs. it is a dark and foreboding world down there. visibility is sometimes only a few feet, and you can't even see the crocodiles until you catch a glimpse of their long rows of razor sharp white teeth.

how did you know you could do this? >> brad bestelink: we were next to a ledge, and this crocodile swam out and actually swam between us and then settled on the ground next to us. ( laughs ) >> cooper: what first went through your mind? >> andy crawford: well, just lots of bubbles and just panic. >> cooper: the panic was understandable. nile crocodiles are africa's largest and most feared predator, but surprisingly, this one didn't attack. brad and andy have been getting closer and closer to these creatures ever since. >> crawford: you do get a different sense of them. they look very beautiful underwater. they're dappled and gold and black, and you see them as more timid, i think. beyond the teeth and the terror, there's this incredible creature that is actually an amazing animal in its own right. >> cooper: you actually think they're beautiful. >> crawford: i do think they're beautiful. i never used to think they were beautiful, but this is a whole different view of them. >> cooper: this is the view most people have of nile crocodiles. patient and stealthy killers, they grab their prey, drag them

into the water, then drown and dismember them. and it's not just animals they eat-- hundreds of people in africa are killed each year while bathing, laundering clothes, or fishing along the waters' edge. nile crocodiles are now protected in botswana, but brad and andy believe more needs to be known about their behavior so that humans can better avoid them. they've invited dr. adam britton, an australian zoologist, to dive with them. when you first heard about what they were doing here, what did you think? >> britton: look, i'll be honest. when i... when i first heard about this, my instant, immediate reaction was "that sounds crazy." >> cooper: dr. britton has been studying crocodiles for more than 18 years. >> britton: i describe crocodiles like ferraris; they're just extremely finely honed creatures. they are... they're... they're just perfectly adapted to do what they do. they're, you know, the smartest of... of all the reptiles. >> cooper: britton is building a genetic database on nile crocodiles in the delta to better understand how to protect them.

for years, the only way to study them up close was to capture them. >> bestelink: croc on. so, once i've got him by the mouth... >> cooper: it is difficult, dangerous work. >> britton: sit on him. get his legs back. pin his legs between his knees, as well. he's got no leverage. >> cooper: so, what are you doing now? >> britton: i am just going to cover his eyes so that he can't see what we're doing. >> cooper: so, he's not injured at all? >> britton: no, no, he's not injured at all, apart from his pride, perhaps. >> cooper: this crocodile is not sedated; it's simply trying to conserve its energy. why are you doing this? >> britton: if we can get a sample of all the dna from every single crocodile across the delta, then we can start to

build up a picture then of exactly not only where these crocodiles came from, but how they're moving within the delta. >> cooper: because right now, you don't really know that? >> britton: no one really knows anything about that at all. >> cooper: when you actually see the crocodiles up close, there is a beauty to them. often, in pictures, they're covered in mud. they look very drab. but up close, you see the variety of color not just on the top, but also on the bottom. and the tou... to the touch, it's really... there's a softness to them, particularly on the... the feet like this. the claws are about an inch, an inch and a half, but the pads of the feet are actually incredibly soft. capturing crocodiles is stressful for the animal and for us; putting them back in the water is just as hard. >> britton: just keep pressing down, anderson, on the top of the skull. that's good. okay, noose ready to go. okay. three, two, one, go. >> cooper: diving with brad and andy has given dr. adam britton a whole new understanding of crocodiles and their underwater world. >> britton: you're in the water. you've got the current washing over you. you can feel the changes in temperature.

and you suddenly think, "this is what it's like to be a crocodile. this crocodile is... is experiencing these same things." >> cooper: britton has actually begun to take d.n.a. samples from crocodiles underwater, cutting off pieces of their tails. and, incredibly, they don't seem to mind. diving with nile crocodiles is only possible in the winter months when the water is chilly and the animals are sluggish. these cold-blooded reptiles are far too dangerous to dive with in the summer. >> bestelink: the crocs are much more active. they're much more inclined to want to predate. you know, i don't... i don't... >> cooper: predate? attack? >> bestelink: attack, yeah. they... they... they want to go and eat something. >> cooper: so, two months from now, three months from now, you would not dive in these waters. >> bestelink: no. no. no, and i don't. i don't want to die. make no mistake, i do this because i get an understanding as to how these predators work. >> cooper: brad and andy offer to take me diving with them, explaining it's crucial to get off the surface of the water as quickly as possible because that is where crocs attack.

>> crawford: that's the most important thing, because as soon as you're underwater, we believe the crocodiles don't know what we are. they don't recognize us as prey. >> cooper: you say "we believe." do... do you know? >> crawford: we don't. we don't know it for sure. we can never know how they're perceiving us. we're trying to establish how they perceive us. >> cooper: again, you're not really building my confidence here by saying you're not sure. what... what do i need to know before... before going in? >> crawford: well, we believe you're safe. ( laughs ) with all that uncertainty, we believe you're safe. >> cooper: safe? take a look at a recent encounter they had with a crocodile. >> bestelink: you see how close he comes to me? >> cooper: and look at the eye. >> bestelink: yeah. >> cooper: and look at those teeth. those are huge! >> bestelink: they are. >> cooper: this croc was twelve feet long and weighed about 1,400 pounds. >> bestelink: and there's a diver, and watch what he does. >> cooper: oh, my gosh! but because the croc's moving, it doesn't even really sense that diver there. >> bestelink: it... it didn't even know that he was there. and you'll... you'll see how it just goes.

it hits his light and... squashes his light. >> cooper: so, it just thinks that some debris or tree or something? >> bestelink: yeah. >> cooper: that's amazing. we set off early the next day. it's an hour up-river to a spot that has a lot of underwater caves. three divers will go in with me- - brad, cameraman richard uren, and andy. she will be the safety diver watching our backs. >> i'll let you know that there's a croc if i see it first. >> crawford: the sign of crocodile is that. that's the sign. >> cooper: it's the international sign for crocodile? >> crawford: that's the sign for... well, it's our sign for crocodile. >> cooper: okay, okay, good. >> crawford: brad does this. >> cooper: i didn't learn that in scuba school. they didn't teach that. >> crawford: we're going to give you one of these to dive with. it makes you feel better. it also gives you some barrier... >> cooper: makes you feel better? that's really all it's for, is just to make me feel better? >> crawford: well, main... mainly that, and, actually... to actually anchor yourself in the current. >> cooper: because no matter what, you do not want to drift onto... >> crawford: you don't want to drift onto the crocodile. >> cooper: as soon as the crocs see our boat, they disappear. we hope they've gone to the bottom to hide in their underwater caves, but they might still be floating near the surface waiting to attack.

it's a very strange feeling before you go diving because you know there are crocodiles in this area but you don't see any on the surface. the problem is, as the boat comes in, any motion on the surface does tend to attract crocodiles, so you want to try to get here and in the water and to the bottom as quickly as possible. we suit up, do our final checks and then take the plunge. >> bestelink: anderson, good? okay. >> cooper: we get to the river bottom as quickly as we can. it's only about 15 feet deep. thankfully, the visibility is good and we find ourselves in a stunning underwater garden with overhanging ledges, walls of papyrus, submerged trees and lilies. we know there's at least one crocodile in this area because we saw the ripples on the water. we believe it's gone into a nearby cave system, and we are

going to go into the caves right now to try to see if we can find it. it's eerie and intimidating down here. the only light comes from our cameras, and it's easy to lose your way. brad signals that he sees a crocodile. at first, i can't see anything. but then, out of the darkness, on the floor of the cave just as brad warned, i see that gleaming row of white teeth. to finally see one, it's amazing. there's a beauty to it, but it's also incredibly intimidating. you really have the sense when you're so close to it of just how strong it is. and it looks right at you, and you know and it knows that it could attack you at any moment, and there is nothing you can do about it. the crocodile disappears into the darkness. we push further into the cave. it gets narrower and more claustrophobic as we move deeper

into the gloom. then, lurking on a nearby ledge, there's another crocodile. this crocodile is about nine feet long. its tail, though, makes up about half its length. crocs have the amazing ability to actually slow their heart rate down. they can close off one of the valves in their heart, which stops the flow of blood to some of its organs and allows them to stay underwater for hours at a time. it... it's amazing how close the crocodile is. you can't tell if it's watching you or not. suddenly, the crocodile backs away. it's not taking its eyes off me. i have no idea what it's going to do. my heart is pounding. neither of us moves.

then, with a flick of his tail, he's off. we move further through the undergrowth and find yet another crocodile. this time, it's facing me head on. on the stick i'm holding, i have a small camera, and i move it closer to try and get a better shot. i know i should be terrified, but the truth is, it's actually thrilling. it's extraordinary that i can get so close. i'm literally looking at it right in the face, staring at it face to face. the crocodile's front vision is not very good, so this is actually a relatively safe place to be. the crocodile is also laying low, which is a good sign. if it felt threatened, it would rise up on its feet.

that would be an indication it might be ready to strike. when it finally takes off, we start following it. the crocodile is kicking up so much sand and sediment, we can't see where we're going. we are trying to pursue the crocodile right now, but i can't tell how large it is. its tail is so powerful, i am almost right on top of it. i can reach out right now and just touch the tail, but i am worried if i do that, it will somehow turn around. it just doesn't seem like a good idea, but i got to say it's so tempting. the croc is moving so fast, we can't keep up for long. it's time to surface and find the boat. that was amazing. i was right... right on top of it. >> bestelink: eh? >> cooper: i was right on top of its tail. i mean, i could have touched it. >> bestelink: yeah, i know. and then he turns around. >> cooper: and then he turns around! ( laughter )

i swear, there was a moment where i thought, "jesus, he could just attack, and there's nothing i could do about it." >> bestelink: absolutely. but did you ever feel like he was going to attack? >> cooper: no. well, may... ( laughs ) ...maybe a little bit, actually. i've dived with great white sharks before, but, in terms of numbers of people killed each year, nile crocodiles are far more deadly. once ruthlessly hunted, still vilified as mindless killing machines, we can finally observe them as they really are: perfectly evolved denizens of the dark, ancient creatures now, for the first time, fully visible in the light. >> go to 60minutesovertime.com for the dangerous croc dives you didn't see. r business. so, if you're sleeping in your contact lenses, ask about the air optix® contacts so breathable they're approved for up to 30 nights of continuous wear. serious eye problems may occur. ask your doctor and visit airoptix.com for safety information and a free one-month trial.

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