Facial Recognition Is Coming To US Airports (theverge.com)

Facial recognition systems will be coming to U.S. airports in the very near future. "Customs and Border Protection first started testing facial recognition systems at Dulles Airport in 2015, then expanded the tests to New York's JFK Airport last year," reports The Verge. "Now, a new project is poised to bring those same systems to every international airport in America." From the report: Called Biometric Exit, the project would use facial matching systems to identify every visa holder as they leave the country. Passengers would have their photos taken immediately before boarding, to be matched with the passport-style photos provided with the visa application. If there's no match in the system, it could be evidence that the visitor entered the country illegally. The system is currently being tested on a single flight from Atlanta to Tokyo, but after being expedited by the Trump administration, it's expected to expand to more airports this summer, eventually rolling out to every international flight and border crossing in the U.S. U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Larry Panetta, who took over the airport portion of the project in February, explained the advantages of facial recognition at the Border Security Expo last week. "Facial recognition is the path forward we're working on," Panetta said at the conference. "We currently have everyone's photo, so we don't need to do any sort of enrollment. We have access to the Department of State records so we have photos of U.S. Citizens, we have visa photos, we have photos of people when they cross into the U.S. and their biometrics are captured into [DHS biometric database] IDENT."

Comments

Yawn...

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been doing this in Australia for a decade. It's called "SmartGate"

Re:Isn't this backwards??

[AHuxley]

AC Re 'Why not check incoming faces"
The illegal migrants sneak in illegally or get help to enter the USA without documentation. So its hard to get an entry image.

Once in the USA the illegal immigrant might buy, create or use documents as needed domestically.
Different state and federal databases cant share a lot of details due to domestic privacy protections so some forged, borrowed or documents obtained by deception can be used to build a larger collection of real paperwork.
At some time on average the illegal migrant might feel so arrogant that they think they can travel out and then just return to the USA.
That is when reconciling exit images is so powerful. The illegal immigrant is finally detected and so is the full history of their forged documentation.
Citizenship or legal documents to be in the USA will soon be needed at the state and city level too finally removing the ability to obtain city or state cover to remain in the USA.