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Leaked Document Reveals Upcoming Biometric Experiments At US Customs
sarahnaomi sends word of new biometric technologies coming to U.S. entry points. "The facial recognition pilot program launched last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which civil liberties advocates say could lead to new potentially privacy-invading programs, is just the first of three biometric experiments that the feds are getting ready to launch. The three experiments involve new controversial technologies like iris and face scanner kiosks, which CBP plans to deploy at the Mexican border, and facial recognition software, according to a leaked document obtained by Motherboard. All three pilots are part of a broader Customs and Border Protection program to modernize screenings at American entry and exit ports, including at the highly politicized Mexican border, with the aid of new biometric technologies. The program is known as Apex Air Entry and Exit Re-Engineering Project, according to the leaked slides. These pilot programs have the goal of "identifying and implementing" biometric technologies that can be used at American borders to improve the immigration system as well as US national security, according to the slides."
Putin laughs at you!
People kept saying "it won't get any worse" and "it can't happen here". Now they're talking about mandatory voting. Time to haul stakes.
The Global Entry kiosks use finger prints and facial recognition to verify your identity already.
I don't see how this is a privacy concern. If you are traveling via plane, you already need to show a government issued photo id, which means the government already has your mug-shot.
The destination is total pervasive surveillance of the population. A false sense of control/power is the driver. JMHO...
So, everyone expects to be perfectly anonymous at a Customs Checkpoint, eh?
Really? Going to a place where the guards on both sides of the border check your identity routinely, and people expect anonymity as a matter of course?
Could we perhaps find something more important to be outraged about? Like LSU's baseball team embarrassing themselves last night? Or the morning coffee being cold? Or the birds waking my wife up early (therefore grumpy)?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Now the retinal transplant seems like a plausible future scenario.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
About 10 years ago the UK had an IRIS scanning system, it was fantastic. Then budget cuts came and it was disbanded. No need for a passport check, just flash your eyeballs at the camera and entry to the UK :)
Build-a-Wall: that is stupid. it didnt work in berlin, it didnt work in china, it doesnt work in Israel, and its just a single donation to a government contractor.
Immigration Reform: Powerball odds now more promising than reasonable reform legislation. The plutocracy does not share your interest in expanding the number of homebuilders and salad harvesters eligible for social security, medicare, healthcare, and especially disability compensation.
Lets turn the place into Half Life 2: Yes please. Drones, Bioscanners, those lasers that sweep over people, xrays, drug sniffing robots, tasers, Terminators, and lots of plastic handcuffs and temporary prisons with indefinite detention. This system works perfectly to avoid the problem, ignore our melting pot ethos, and turn a profit for a quantifiable number of military and defense related government contractors. Tune in next year when we roll this shit out at stadiums, train stations, bus stops, and shopping malls.
Good people go to bed earlier.
America was once the place everyone wanted to come to. And we let them. Now what? We've become the paranoid big brother nanny state. In ten years we'll have laser guided drones and robo-dogs marking people for assignation and arrest and for what end? Open the damn border and put all that money in a better place like - I don't know - scientific research and R&D for FOR PROFIT companies that create real paying jobs?
Come on, people, be realistic. Slashdotters are the foremost people complaining about antiquated low-tech approaches to problems and how they could be sped up, and probably half of us already use fingerprint or face recognition on our devices. Yet we're also among the people most aware of the negative impacts of such systems and the potential for abuse.
This isn't random scanning, or general surveillance - this is a Customs checkpoint, where their ENTIRE JOB is to know who is passing in and out of the country. This is one of the ONLY places where such technology is justified. The danger isn't the open explicit mandated checkpoints, it's the misuse of this technology at every commuter station and the entrances to entertainment or shopping venues - and the availability of government-collected information (which we are coerced to provide) to commercial interests for non-public purposes. Though on a practical level it's more likely to go broke because someone got access to my finances through stupid commercial activity.
I see this as complimentary information on your passport/ID against frauds/fake papers. Why is it touted as an invasion of privacy ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
We have them Mexicans INVADING America. We have to secure the border and keep them out. They are diluting our culture and they don't want to learn English and they are bringing ebola and they are bringing measles because they don't have vaccination. It's the downfall of America. SECURE THE BORDER NOW!!!
I don't believe the government will be able to keep the iris scan data safe. And from there it is just a small step to fake my identity, maybe not by creating a fake iris but by hacking the connection between the iris scanner and the data base computer.
Let's not forget that border patrol has authority up to 100 miles inland from the border (so just not around the border of Mexico). This means this tech could be used in most of the big cities around the U.S. The full details of the border can be found at http://www.thenation.com/article/180649/66-percent-americans-now-live-constitution-free-zone
As if illegals go through the official entry points....or at the feds going to line the Rio Grande with Kiosks
You seem to think, that if the wall fails to prevent all trespass, it may as well not exist at all. This is profoundly wrong.
Contrary to your unsubstantiated statements, the wall did work in Berlin:
and still works in Israel:
A wall around my property is also working very nicely, thank you very much, as is one around the White House and other numerous installations world-wide, both private and public — fence-builders are not out of business, are they?
It didn't do much for China, because walls by themselves aren't enough — an unattended and unpatrolled border will be breached — but it still slows an invasion down and makes the defenders' (if there are any!) job easier.
One has to try real hard to get more wrong than you just did, congratulations...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
At the ATL airport. Pretty whizzy. I think it may have actually sped up the process. The only strange part was you basically move through a set of various stations and checks, like 4 or 5 before you finally talk with an agent about declarations at the end. It was pretty streamlined and pretty easy to use the devices.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
While border crossing has typically meant displaying government issues documentation, primarily a passport and any related travel/entry visas. This requires informed consent of the traveller, they are asked to display their papers. The question is, what about programs that aren't obvious or informed consent?
The part that is concerning is the existence of classified "experiments" where is it not clear what information is being gathered, who has access to it, and how it is being used.
History has repeatedly shown that undisclosed, and/or unchecked surveillance ends up being misused against the public, not in the public interest.
If everything is legal, robust, and accurate, why does law enforcement has to be done in such a clandestine manner? The vast majority of identification / evidence techniques used in court are robust enough to withstand being challenged by the defence.
While these clandestine techniques being "experimented" with may be pure BS, being misused simply as a basis for law enforcement agents to continue practising age-old discrimination based on racial profiling, bigotry, and sterotypes, not any actual accurate information.
I have yet to see any compelling argument as to why the airline, TSA, or anybody else should care who I am when I fly. I could be the worst terrorist in the world, and if their security measures are adequately indicating that I'm unarmed, it's safe to let me fly.
It's a government issue and an airline issue, where they really want to know who I am for control over tickets and control over the people. Somewhere along the way their insistence that it was for security reasons became the accepted, unchallenged truth. "For security reasons" is not and should not be an excuse for anything they want to do.
P.S. Photo ID is not required to fly. They just make it way less convenient if you don't. See the TSA's own web site for info. http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/acceptable-ids
..and I didn't speak up because i wasn't Mexican.
Remember, whether it's immigrants or Guantanamo prisoners: if it's good enough for Them, then it's good enough for Us.
Just dual boot the laptop and have it not ask which OS to load unless you tap a certain key during the boot sequence. Customs workers are happy because they think they have access, travelers are happy because their data is safe, and lawmakers can go fuck themselves because their ignorance precedes them.
The last time that I (a US citizen) flew back from Canada (last December), I got directed to a kiosk that I inserted my passport into and that took a photo of my face. When I got my last passport photo, I was clean shaven, had just got my haircut and was 20 lbs heavier. When I went through Passport Control, I hadn't had an opportunity to shave for a few days, I hadn't had much sleep either and it had been a couple months since I got my haircut. The kiosk could not match my passport photo against how I looked, so I was directed to a Immigrations officer. He could instantly tell that the photo matched my face.
Most of the people going through Passport Control didn't seem to have the same problem, which was fine because there was a long line for the station after the kiosk and no line for an Immigration officer, so, in the end, I got through more quickly.
Its the motherfuckers WALKING across the borders you have to worry about