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Privacy Transportation Government United States

Faces Are Being Scanned At US Airports With No Safeguards on Data Use (nytimes.com) 106

Posted by EditorDavid from the seeing-you-off dept.
schwit1 writes: The program makes boarding an international flight a breeze: Passengers step up to the gate, get their photo taken and proceed onto the plane. There is no paper ticket or airline app. Thanks to facial recognition technology, their face becomes their boarding pass.... The problem confronting thousands of travelers, is that few companies participating in the program, called the Traveler Verification Service, give explicit guarantees that passengers' facial recognition data will be protected.

And even though the program is run by the Department of Homeland Security, federal officials say they have placed no limits on how participating companies -- mostly airlines but also cruise lines -- can use that data or store it, opening up travelers' most personal information to potential misuse and abuse such as being sold or used to track passengers' whereabouts.
The Department of Homeland Security is now using the data to track foreigners overstaying their visas, according to the Times. "After passengers' faces are scanned at the gate, the scan is sent to Customs and Border Protection and linked with other personally identifying data, such as date of birth and passport and flight information."

But the face scans are collected by independent companies, and Border Protection officials insist they have no control over how that data gets used.
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Faces Are Being Scanned At US Airports With No Safeguards on Data Use More

Faces Are Being Scanned At US Airports With No Safeguards on Data Use

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  • People who did not pay their tax and wanted to sneak out of the USA on "another" passport.
    Illegal migrants who thought their "new" passport would never get cross referenced with any other US database.
    People who asked for "protection" in the USA going back for a holiday in the nation they "escaped" from for a few months.
    Criminals who created an entire fake life with a entire new passport ID story suddenly get detected from that old city/state police image :)

    Database sharing and reconciliation between

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So....as long as I'm not a criminal then I'm fine? Great "examples".

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I believe every story ever written of computers enforcing utopian ideals on humanity ends with all of humanity wiped out through perfect enforcement of their laws.

        I'd be surprised if even someone in a coma is not arguably violating some law at every moment given how ridiculous our laws have become.

        So, yes, as long as you're not a criminal, you're fine. Good luck with that.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Citizens with their own passports who pay their tax on time can enjoy international travel AC.
        A criminal, an illegal migrant, a person with fake ID, a person who claimed protection going back to the nation they escaped will be detected.

        • Citizens with their own passports who pay their tax on time can enjoy international travel AC. A criminal, an illegal migrant, a person with fake ID, a person who claimed protection going back to the nation they escaped will be detected.

          Plus a bunch of completely innocent people who have been unnecessarily detained and harassed after being misidentified. I believe Bayes theorem will have something to say about this.

          https://www.wired.co.uk/articl... [wired.co.uk]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      First they came for the blacks, but I said nothing, because I was not black.

      Then they came for the Muslims, but I said nothing because I was not a Muslim.

      Then they came for the illegal aliens, but I said nothing because I was not an illegal alien.

      Then nobody came for me, because we didn’t need militarized police or a surveillance state anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      A list of valid reasons to use facial detection.
      But not a single one is an excuses for not having safeguards in place for who can use the biometrics and what for.
      It might be typical for US citizen to not know about privacy as a legal concept but one day you will regret these very invasive policies.
    • People who had a bad breakup with anyone involved with the system or know someone who is.

      People whose image had the wrong associated metadata applied to it.

      People who expose a flaw in the image matching system the vendor won't acknowledge.

      People who look very similar to someone else.
  • See how the government does things? TSA, for your "safety" crap. Body searches, now face ID scans, how long until they mandate barcode tattoos or implanted ID chips? Couple that with the "convenience" of using your phone, chip card to access "money" and they'll end the use of cash, and couple all of this together and they gotcha.

  • Sure there are safeguards (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday August 11, 2018 @09:17PM (#57109680)
    if you're very wealthy then nothing bad will happen to your data and it will be well cared for.

    Oh, you meant for the rest of us? Well, if you're gonna make a two tiered justice system you've got to break some omelets or something.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      As bad as it sounds, putting special safeguards on data of the very wealthy is good.

      The rest of us are already protected by the fact we don't stand out. I've never been followed by paparazzi, I don't have stuff that attract professional thieves or any family member worth kidnapping for ransom, I don't have an army of suckers asking me for favors anywhere I go. So who will go out of their way to get my data? I could put my personal phone number online for everyone to see and nothing will happen since it does

    • Yes. The Clintons have done horrible things in this world, haven't they?
  • What exactly is someone going to do with a scan of your face? Is someone going to hack in and 3d print a facial mask of your face and then try to get through airport security with a plastic face? I just don't see what value this data has to anyone. I guess if you had data on a large enough group of people you could find people who are close enough matches to fool the system to yourself or other members of your group.

    • No, they'll just use it to cross-reference your other data AND know that you're out of the country.

      (Congratulations, you apparently don't know anything about databases AND you didn't even bother to read all of the summary before posting silly questions.)

      • But if you are boarding a plane with a ticket where you checked in with a photo ID...don't they already know you are out of the country?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          Depends on how state and city privacy laws get set and what could be shared with the federal gov/mil in the past.
          Tax problems? No issued passport but the same person now has a "new" passport to go on holiday with?
          Illegal migrants wanting to go on holiday expecting their created US documents to work due to federal/state "privacy" laws.
          People who are now in the USA who told the US government they could never return to their own nation. Now going on a holiday to the nation they wanted to be protected from

        • Depends on who "they" are, and whether they have a legitimate reason to access such data.

          The issue is not with the taking of images, using facial recognition tech, or knowing that you're in or out of the country. The issue is whom this information gets shared with, how it can be used by them, and what safeguards it's under.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrMr ( 219533 )
            Perhaps the US can copy the GDPR? At least you will have a legal course of action if you accidentally end up in a database you don't belong in...
  • I'm from Australia, I pretty much expect this when I come to the US. In fact; I'd would have been surprised if this wasn't the case.

  • 1984 (Score:2)

    by Macdude ( 23507 )

    1984

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