A bipartisan group of 12 senators has urged the Transportation Security Administration’s inspector general to investigate the agency’s use of facial recognition, saying it poses a significant threat to privacy and civil liberties.
“This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology’s precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect passenger privacy,” the senators wrote.
“While the TSA claims facial recognition is optional, it is confusing and intimidating to opt out of TSA’s facial recognition scans, and our offices have received numerous anecdotal reports of Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) becoming belligerent when a traveler askes to opt out, or simply being unaware of that right,” the senators wrote. They added that in some airports the signage instructing flyers to step in front of a camera is prominently displayed while signs advising passengers of their right to opt out of face scan is “strategically placed in inconspicuous locations.”
To opt out of a face scan at an airport, a traveler need only say that they decline facial recognition. They can then proceed normally through security by presenting an identification document, such as a driver’s license or passport.
I’m very pro privacy, but I’m just going to say out loud that it’s not like US state and federal governments don’t already have photos of your face that can be used to track you. The alternative is to hand over your ID, the thing the government printed after capturing and storing a picture of your face.
My pitchforks are saved for companies that track your location and interactions using facial recognition combined with social media posts. Or CCTV, of course.
Did you know the TSA is a public branch of defense that sits between the DOD and the NSA?
I bet you didn’t know that whatever data the TSA collects they can sell to corporations and back to the government for “validations”.
the key is corporations can buy your private data from the government.
so yeah, this is a HUGE privacy issue.
They’re part of Department of Homeland Security. NSA is part of Department of Defense. So they’re actually not, unless you meant this figuratively.
Everyone knows this, regarding reselling the data
Maybe I missundertand what you mean but doesn’t the other comment responding disagree?
It sounds like we need legislation that restricts government data being sold or cross referenced by private companies. I don’t see that happening though as people cower when it comes to the term saftey.
Soon as someone says it helps track down murderers and rapists, many people will back it. I imagine the NSA/FBI/CIA would want deals with the private sector such as Ring and such to acquire possible matches that fit criminals they haven’t found.
This creates an invasion of privacy, but many people would vote for it because they don’t value their privacy over such. I think the questions come back to how we can keep privacy while searches like that are bound to be supported/occur.
In theory acquisition of data from private sector to government I think will always pass by voters. Whether I agree or not, but writing legislation that blocks any information being shared/sold by government to private sector I believe we can get people to support.
Also pro-privacy, here. I was unable to get a good answer on this on HN. It seems to me that replacing a human entering data into a computer at the checkpoint with a computer entering data into a computer at the checkpoint wasn’t much of a change. The whole checkpoint area is already bristling with cameras, as well.
Fortunately I just change my face every time they take it