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Facial Scans at US Airports Violate Americans' Privacy, Report Says (nytimes.com)
Ron Nixon, writing for The New York Times: A new report concludes that a Department of Homeland Security pilot program improperly gathers data on Americans when it requires passengers embarking on foreign flights to undergo facial recognition scans to ensure they haven't overstayed visas. The report, released on Thursday by researchers at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University's law school, called the system an invasive surveillance tool that the department has installed at nearly a dozen airports without going through a required federal rule-making process. The report's authors examined dozens of Department of Homeland Security documents and raised questions about the accuracy of facial recognition scans. They said the technology had high error rates and are subject to bias, because the scans often fail to properly identify women and African-Americans. "It's telling that D.H.S. cannot identify a single benefit actually resulting from airport face scans at the departure gate," said Harrison Rudolph, an associate at the center and one of the report's co-authors. "D.H.S. doesn't need a face-scanning system to catch travelers without a photo on file. It's alarming that D.H.S. still hasn't supplied evidence for the necessity of this $1 billion program," he added.
Trump is stacking it with patriots.
Researchers at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University's law school made this claim. Not the Supreme Court, which has granted great leeway to what customs can do at the borders. It's a legal opinion paper that is just that, opinion, with no legal standing.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Has NEVER required evidence for the necessity. Why should this be any different?
News at 11
Airport security only applies to those of us who fly commercial. When is the last time the top critters in our government flew commercial? Some of them might never have. When you can charter your own aircraft you don't have to go through security, you go straight to the airplane cabin door. Same deal with government aircraft. These people get treatment that is better than the best we can buy, and they have no reason to care about what the rest of us go through.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
At American airports. Facial recognition for customers boarding foreign flights. To see if they've overstayed their visa. So the government can presumably take action to place the people they've caught onto a foreign flight because they've overstayed their visa.
They can build a $1 billion program to catch people leaving late, but cannot do a single thing to keep people out. Besides, what's the penalty if they're on a flight home one day past their visa? Throw them in jail and then send them home?
it requires passengers embarking on foreign flights to undergo facial recognition scans to ensure they haven't overstayed visas.
Okay, maybe I’m missing something...
So if I’m visiting the US and I overstay my visa. Now I’m getting on an airplane to leave the country and they want to make sure that I didn’t overstay?
Hello? I’m leaving...
What, you’re going to arrest me for overstaying my visa while I’m leaving? And you’re going to spend a billion dollars to catch me as I do just what you want me to do—leave!
Really? My tax dollars at work...
Do you think they're only scanning Visa holders?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
It's telling that D.H.S. cannot identify a single benefit actually resulting from airport face scans at the departure gate
As if benefit analysis was EVER a consideration for DHS or TSA... I would love to see the benefit analysis of confiscating people's nail clippers from carry on luggage.
Easy - they put you on the "You can't come back" list.
No tinfoil needed.
Since when do Americans need a visa to visit America? By definition anyone carrying a US passport should be exempt, if you believe their excuse for doing the scans.
Sure it is invasive, but that by itself does not make it illegal. Not even the fact that it is useless.
And if it is illegal today, I bet it will be legal tomorrow.
Law and morality are not the same.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Private companies got $1 billion in revenue.
This is America. What greater necessity could there be than a company making money?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
They're not asking.
TSA treating almost everyone as a criminal. Having to arrive 1-3 hours early for your flight, due to searches and what not Terrible in flight services/food Delayed flights Canceled flights Most of the places I fly to, are within a days drive, so I just drive where I need to go.
Worse than that, it's not just international flights. There's no US exit process, so international flights depart from the same gates as domestic. The only way this would work is to scan everyone at the airport.
I have a hard time believing they don't store the exact same data on everyone else.
How is this (albeit malfunctioning) technology any different than a cop standing at the airport, scanning the crowd with his eyes?
The ostensible reason for the scans is " to undergo facial recognition scans to ensure they haven't overstayed visas." Really, if a person is leaving, who cares at that point if they over-stayed. The good news is that they are leaving! Therefore, since they are scanning everyone, could it be that the real reason is something that they do not wish to admit.
porky pig did a lot more than 1 B in kickbacks.
A smart traveler would overstay their VISA, and then purposely get caught. Free flight home?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Since when do Americans need a visa to visit America? By definition anyone carrying a US passport should be exempt, if you believe their excuse for doing the scans.
What part of scanning everybody are you having problems with? They are scanning everybody, Americans and non-Americans alike, in order to catch the ones with expired visas.
What I don't get: these are people leaving the country. If somebody has an expired visa, what they are supposed to do is to leave the country. I don't see the point of a billion-dollar program (!) to catch the people leaving; what they're supposed to be doing is catching the people on expired visas who are not leaving the country.
Scanning or no scanning, they already know everything about each passenger. So, what additional privacy invasion can happen due to facial recognition?
Maybe, it is a waste of time/money — or, perhaps, a valid tool to catch frauds and cheaters flying with fake documents. But in either case it does not threaten the privacy of ordinary people (Americans or otherwise) any more, than it being impossible to fly anonymously already did...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Can only be done once. No visa for the same smart traveler ever again...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The only way this would work is to scan everyone at the airport.
It's an idea. Apparently the Chinese have already gone much further than that.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Pretty sure the evidence can be found within the above sentence fragment.
Requiem for the American Dream
I hope so, I've got an AMEX.
The only way this would work is to scan everyone at the airport.
No, just scan everyone going out a gate with an international flight.
A smart traveler would overstay their VISA, and then purposely get caught. Free flight home?
I don't know where you get that from. They've already paid for the ticket home. If they're lucky, they make that flight. More likely they'll miss that flight and have to pay a rebooking or itinerary change fee, plus lodging when the next available flight is two days away.
Why do you think the US is going to pick up the price of the ticket they already have?
Except any gate can have an international flight. My main experience is with United but, the same gate at O'Hare / Newark / IAD can have a flight to Hong Kong or London followed by a flight to Houston. Hell sometimes even the plane to Houston continues on to South America, meaning the same flight has a mixture of domestic/international passengers.
I fail Capitalization.
-gnick
Don't they check your passport at security and/or the airline counter?
It's been a while since I've flown internationally, but I seem to remember needing to demonstrate I had a passport at least to the airline.
If TSA doesn't require a passport now, all they need to do is require a passport for international flights, then scan people when their ticket and passport is inspected at the security entry.
Don't scan any US citizens or domestic flights, done.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
"Don't they check your passport at security and/or the airline counter?"
Sure but lots of people have several passports and lots of countries allow people to change their name when getting their passport, so to better fit in with the local crowd.
(read not getting harassed by local foreigner haters)
No, they scan you if you use Mastercard too.
Except any gate can have an international flight.
First of all, not true. And second, you know when a certain gate has an international flight and when it doesn't. You only use it at a gate where there is an international flight.
can have a flight to Hong Kong or London followed by a flight to Houston.
Yes, so the scanner is on when there is a flight to London boarding and not on when the flight is going to Houston. Is it really that hard?
Hell sometimes even the plane to Houston continues on to South America,
Uhhh, the plane may go on, but not without reboarding. It's an international flight, it needs different handling. The airline is going to make sure everyone on an international flight has their passports or entry documents just so they don't have to cart them back. You can't do that if you have a mix.
And even so, if the flight is international, you turn the scanner on. If it is domestic, you turn it off. That solves the problem of scanning people who aren't going international.
You are wrong. If you research this you will find that non-citizens have most of the same civil rights as citizens under the constitution within the border of the US.
https://www.learnliberty.org/b...
The supreme court has even held that non-citizens have some constitutional rights outside of our border.
Lookup Supreme Court case Boumediene v. Bush
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush)
Re "who cares at that point if they over-stayed"
So that they can never return to the USA legally again.
They might be on a holiday and think they can just reenter the USA again.
The point is to legally document their crime and return them to their own nation.
No getting back into the USA again. The USA can then provide that persons details to many other nations and warn them about that persons crime.
That person knew they had to return to their own nation after a set time. They understood they did not get unlimited time to work and just wonder around the USA.
By counting every face in and out of the USA the USA is protected and so are many other friendly nations.
Re "scanning everyone" could help detect the people with fake, forged, borrowed or stolen documents.
They might have overstayed but the documents they present to go on a holiday might not be their own.
So scanning everyone detects people who entered the USA a long time ago and who thought they could enter and exit the USA with impunity.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
There's a few passport checks on an international itinerary.
1. Providing the info to the airline.
2. Showing the airline (or code-share partner) the passport to print a boarding pass and check luggage. Even if the "showing" is a scan on a kiosk.
2a. This might be skippable if you print at home, I always have luggage and no printer so I don't know how this works out.
3. The boarding pass will have a big honking "INTL" on it when going through security, even for the domestic leg, prompting the TSA to ask for the passport as a travel document. They also write some scribbles on the boarding pass.
4. Finally, when boarding the actual international plane, airline staff will look at everyone's passport and stamp the boarding pass with something indicating they're good to go. The gate agent will look at the stamp before letting each person in.
2a. This might be skippable if you print at home, I always have luggage and no printer so I don't know how this works out.
You gotta show one to the airline sometime. They need to know you have it so they won't get stuck hauling you back when you don't and can't get in at the destination.
3. The boarding pass will have a big honking "INTL" on it when going through security, even for the domestic leg, prompting the TSA to ask for the passport as a travel document. They also write some scribbles on the boarding pass.
They always write "scribbles" on the boarding pass, even for a domestic flight. As for demanding a passport, I can't recall them ever doing that to me.
It is trivial to get around this, too. Instead of one flight, take one to a hub and then one international. I.e., one domestic, one international. Go through security for the domestic flight using your Real ID compatible driver's license, then you're already behind security for the international flight and you never deal with TSA for that.
4. Finally, when boarding the actual international plane, airline staff will look at everyone's passport and stamp the boarding pass with something indicating they're good to go.
No. That takes place a long time before boarding, simply so they can get it done with and board the plane faster. Passport checks at boarding take a lot of time.
The gate agent will look at the stamp before letting each person in.
Nope. With electronic boarding passes there is no stamp to look at, and you can hold your own paper pass against the glass until it beeps "ok". They don't bother to look unless the computer tells them to -- when there's a problem.
Nothing at all crosschecks the identity of the person getting on the plane against the records, which makes this facial scan valuable. Is the person walking down the jetway who it is supposed to be?
... is that they attained funding and were allowed to deploy it without answering any of these issues first.
We have become a caricature of the Soviet Union.
This is completely false. All international flights are in terminal 4 at O'Hare. Domestic flights are in terminals 1, 2, or 3.
Check the doors, roads coming in, windows next to doors.
You will probably find words to the effect of, "Entering this facility constitutes consent to identification and search." along with a bunch of legal code gobbledygook that cites the authority to do that under Federal law and legal code in the local jurisdiction. You are giving implicit consent whenever you walk in the door.
So far, posted signs giving implicit consent have stood up in court.
Yep, kinda crappy.
NRRPT/RCT
No, your comment is completely false. Lufthansa and ANA depart from terminal 1, as well as United international flights. Air Canada departs from terminal 2. Terminal 4 is for International ARRIVALs so they can be processed via immigration, and other international airlines not lucky enough to use the main gates.
Wikipedia article concurs with my memory. Apparently Terminal 3 also has Iberia and Japan Airlines.
But why would you want to facially scan departing international flights? That would be silly. It's arriving international flights that you would want to do facial scans, and those are all in terminal 5.
... this whole article is about scanning departing passengers to catch Visa overstays.
Go home, you're drunk :).