Singapore Airport May Use Facial Recognition Systems To Find Late Passengers (fastcompany.com)

Singapore's Changi airport, which is widely touted as one of the best airports in the world, is testing use of facial recognition systems to find late or lost passengers in the airport so they don't delay their flight for everyone else onboard. From a report: Changi Airport is looking at how it can use the latest technologies to solve many problems - from cutting taxiing times on the runway to quicker predictions of flight arrivals. It comes as the island state embarks on a 'smart nation' initiative to utilize technology to improve lives, create economic opportunity and build community ties. However the proposed use of cameras mounted on lampposts that are linked to facial recognition software has raised privacy concerns. Steve Lee, Changi Airport Group's chief information officer, told Reuters that the airport's experiments are not from a "big brother" perspective but solve real problems. "We have lots of reports of lost passengers...so one possible use case we can think of is, we need to detect and find people who are on the flight. Of course, with permission from the airlines," said Lee.

Comments

Good idea

[Joce640k]

Yes, there's no way a boss/politician could ever look at that and think, "I bet we could use that for finding terrorists..."

Re:Good idea

[cayenne8]

Anything that CAN be used for Big Brother, WILL be used for Big Brother.....eventually.

Facial recognition is a tool

[SuperKendall]

When you enter an airport you have zero expectation of privacy anyway as you already had to pass multiple checks (including photo id) to get in, so why would it matter if there is constant monitoring inside the airport as well?

I can see a ton of real value especially in recognizing someone who is supposed to be on a plane in fifteen minutes is not near the gate and not headed that way. They could even have staff drive a cart over and help especially slow or confused people, it could actually end up being really friendly and helpful unlike the dystopian scenario that always comes to mind when we imagine complete monitoring.

Facial recognition is just a tool, while we should be mindful of uses that are creepy or dangerous, we should also not categorically dismiss truly useful real world uses just because there are also mis-uses possible.

Re:Facial recognition is a tool

[adosch]

I can see a ton of real value especially in recognizing someone who is supposed to be on a plane in fifteen minutes is not near the gate and not headed that way. They could even have staff drive a cart over and help especially slow or confused people, it could actually end up being really friendly and helpful unlike the dystopian scenario that always comes to mind when we imagine complete monitoring.

First I'll start out by saying: If you're argument is people weren't at the gate 15 minutes prior to boarding, then don't fly and be more responsible next time. Fuck, I can't tell you how many times I've had my plane held up because someone was late eating at the Chili's Bar and Grill down 100'. Now if you're legitimately late because you're running from one plane to the next, absolutely.

All I can say is, we can justify anything with that a long list with thousands of other optimistic use cases to death. I agree that there is a ton of real benefits for that. But we always ignore the fact that everyone and everything is done for the best interest to improve quality of life. Data minding, collection, capture, surveillance is huge. Have you been blind to the news at all?

Also, I feel pretty damn seasoned air traveler and have flown for decades. At times, I even feel a bit confused with a odd ball gate change at the last minute, hopping terminals via train or bus, even with all the signage, TSA and airport staff or picking that one seemingly confident looking fellow out of the bunch to ask a Hey, excuse me question. But guess what? I and everyone else figures it the fuck out. Even if you miss your flight, can't find your way, I haven't seen one airline go tell you to kick rocks, ever, even when it's your fault. You may not get totally catered to in some cases, but for the few who are confused in an airport, the solution is 'facial recognition system'? That's like needing a match, so you went and bought a 50lb propane tank and a blow torch.

Facial recognition is just a tool, while we should be mindful of uses that are creepy or dangerous, we should also not categorically dismiss truly useful real world uses just because there are also mis-uses possible.

True but how can you not? It's easy to become desensitized, grow wool over your eyes and develop amnesia. Technology always will, has been and ever will get abused for the wrong reasons it was intended. How many tech giants have misused, abused, all your data, pillaged your 'cloud' picture account of family photos, scraped your 'cloud' storage account, string data mine the shit out of your email with.

That's a simple propaganda like stunt and excuse to implement something to appear helpful to 0.00001% of the flying population at this airport. We all know privacy is gone at airports, it's not pre-911 anymore. But don't make shitty all-for-the-end-user claims so you don't feel guilty at the end of the day with your half-truth.

Wrong person to ask for permission

[cowwoc2001]

"Of course, with permission from the airlines."

Why should airlines be asked for permission? Why not the people actually being scanned?!

Re:Wrong person to ask for permission

[Nidi62]

"Of course, with permission from the airlines."

Why should airlines be asked for permission? Why not the people actually being scanned?!

You're misunderstanding. They already plan to use facial recognition on the passengers. They need to ask the airlines for permission to access flight manifests and bookings, and most likely tie in with check-in counters and kiosks to actually match names to faces (either by storing the photo when a passport is scanned, or have a camera trained on each check in counter). Depending on the systems used by the airline this could lead to possible exposure to payment or contact information of passengers, and possibly proprietary airline data. That's where it gets tricky. But the passengers? They're SOL in terms of privacy control. I guess you could wear one of those little surgical masks? It's an asian airport so at least you'd fit in and wouldn't look too weird.

Rewarding bad behavior

[QuietLagoon]

The late passengers should miss their plane. To go rummaging them up, trying to find them before the plane leaves, will only encourage the bad behavior of not getting to the gate area on time. Also, I have the distinct opinion that this "feature" is really a cover for having active facial recognition in the airport.

Inexperience

[SuperKendall]

Exactly. No airport is going to invest in a multi-million dollar system to help find "confused" people.

You, sir, have obviously never been to Singapore.

small improvement on service, big land grab

[Virtucon]

It's about control. Think about it, how many flights have you been late as in it's just departed? It happens but that's what trip insurance is for.
True they'd have to remove any checked bags for missing/late passengers but they'd have already flagged it and have those bags identified especially for
international flights.

The downside is that this is a big land grab in terms of privacy. Now, for one or two potential "late/missing" passengers all passengers have to submit their photos or it happens at check-in. What happens to that information after the flight? Does it get deleted?

No, much like the dumb security bin systems you see at Heathrow, this is a bad airport idea.

The Orwellian stuff is already there

[MorePower]

I assume all the scary Orwellian stuff is already in use at airports everywhere. The novel part is that they thought of a way to use the terrorist/criminal/scary person facial recognition tracker infrastructure to possibly help people.

If it's as "good" as FaceID...

[JoeDuncan]

... then we don't have anything to worry about!