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DHS Will Use Facial Recognition To Scan Travelers at the Border (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put out a notice, saying it was looking for a facial recognition system that could work with images taken of people inside their cars. The idea was that such a system could be used to scan people entering and leaving the country through the US/Mexico border and match them to government documents like passports and visas. Now, The Verge reports that DHS will be launching a test of a system aiming to do just that. The Vehicle Face System, as it's called, is scheduled for an initial deployment in August and it will be installed at the Anzalduas border crossing. The test will take place over one year and will aim to take images of passengers in every car that enters or leaves the US through the crossing.
As someone who somewhat frequently crosses the border with Mexico by car in SoCal... You almost never need passport to drive to Mexico, you need it when/if you want to come back to the US. When you drive south, there is no US checkpoint of any kind, just some cameras and devices. One of these definitely is a plate reader, the rest I do not know. Once you are past that, you drive through the Mexican checkpoint, which picks cars at random for inspection. Green light - you keep going, red - you pull over and Mexican border agent comes over for a quick chat.