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Facial Scanning Now Arriving At US Airports (npr.org)
According to a report via NPR, a Geneva-based company called SITA that develops information technology for the world's airlines has installed facial scanning cameras at Orlando International Airport. "Britain-bound passengers -- some wearing Mickey Mouse T-shirts and other Disney paraphernalia -- lined up at Gate 80 recently for the evening British Airways flight to London's Gatwick Airport," reports NPR. "It looks like any other airport departure area, except for the two small gates with what look like small boxes on posts next to them. Those boxes are actually cameras." From the report: Sherry Stein, a senior manager at SITA, says the cameras are triggered when passengers step onto designated footprints. "We collect a photo, send it to CBP, who checks to make sure that person is booked on the manifest and matches the photo that they already have on file." If everything matches, Stein says, "we open the doors and give them the OK to board." All that happens, she says, "in three to five seconds." If things don't match, the traveler's passport is scanned manually by a gate agent. CBP is testing biometric scanning at a dozen or so U.S. international airports to ensure that people leaving the country are who they say they are, and to prevent visa overstays. The Transportation Security Administration, another agency within the Department of Homeland Security, is testing similar devices at security check-in lines.
It's happening to everyone (including US citizens) who leave the US. Not enter. That's the issue.
Russians must be laughing their asses off at the Americans. During Soviet times, bet they didn't think that the US would move towards a system just like theirs or East Germany's, where you needed permission to leave the country. But that's what the US is doing, all under the guise of safety and keeping residents of "shitholes" out. Congrats to us.
"All this is is replacing a human with a computer."
The human who looked at me and compared my face to the photo has forgotten my face about a minute after processing me and no permanent record was made of it.
The computer stores that photo forever in a searchable database. So... yeah... its completely different.