Leviathan As Indefatigable Shutterbug

It’s scary enough that Our Rulers are huge fans of “facial recognition technology,” to the point that “[s]oon, it may be hard for visa holders to board an international flight without submitting to a facial geometry scan.” Or any flight: “a new project is poised to bring those same systems to every international airport in America,” thanks to Donald Trump and his “making the program a central part of his aggressive border security policy.”

But a bureaucrat from US Customs and Border Protection spewed even scarier facts about this evisceration of privacy. For starters, he confessed that his agency

“currently ha[s] everyone’s photo, so we don’t need to do any sort of enrollment. We have access to the Department of State records so we have photos of US Citizens, we have visa photos, we have photos of people when they cross into the US and their biometrics are captured into [DHS biometric database] IDENT…”

… CBP already has visa holders’ faces on file…

Worse,

Making that system work will mean building a robust system for checking passengers’ faces against outside datasets — but as that system is shared with more agencies, it may be used for far more than simply verifying departures, with serious implications for anyone setting foot in an airport.

“Serious implications.” I guess that’s one term for it.

…the same technology could be shared with land borders, as well as partners in the TSA and even private airlines. “We’re essentially building an IT backbone, which can allow TSA or potentially air carriers or any other partner to tie into our backbone,” [the bureaucrat] said. “So once we completely build [it], we could potentially offer it to TSA if they want to use our facial matching or security screening test … .”

The TSA has been playing with facial recognition systems at check-in for years, typically taking a photo of each passenger when they collect their boarding pass and using the photo to track them on less intrusive cameras as they move through the airport. [I despairingly added the emphasis.]

Ahem. Folks, I’ve constantly warned against patronizing American aviation’s gulag. Now here’s another reason to avoid the whole sordid, sorry mess. If you’ve submitted to its indignities, these unspeakable despots own your photograph.

Under the FBI, facial recognition has become a powerful and controversial tool for tracking criminals. If that tool extends to face photos taken at airports, it could mean a subtle but profound change in law enforcement’s powers at the airport.

Ya think?

“Right now, other than the no-fly list, you do not have law enforcement checks on who can fly,” says Alvaro Bedoya, who studies facial recognition at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology. “But once you take that high-quality photograph, why not run it against the FBI database? Why not run it against state databases of people with outstanding warrants? Suddenly you’re moving from this world in which you’re just verifying identity to another world where the act of flying is cause for a law enforcement search.”

Ah, but fear not: “CBP remains committed to protecting the privacy of all travelers.”

Riiiiigghhht. Just as the TSA “is committed to ensuring all travelers are treated with respect and courtesy” as it strip-searches and gate-rapes them.

The Best of Becky Akers