There are reports that the CIA and FBI “already want to leverage TSA checkpoints for law enforcement and intelligence purposes…pressure will build to expand it further and try to identify everyone from parole violators to deadbeat dads,” according to an ACLU White Paper.
The ACLU tested facial recognition systems in 2018 by running photos of members of Congress through a massive data of police mug shots, and 28 lawmakers “were incorrectly matched to people charged with a crime.” Actually, the number of congressmen who have committed criminal offenses is probably far higher but the matches to those specific mug shots were erroneous.
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/will-tsa-steal-your-face/
by Jim Bovard
The Transportation Security Administration is running a pilot program in which travelers stand in photo kiosks that compare their face with a federal database of photos from passport applications, drivers’ licenses and other sources. TSA promises that its new airport regime, which could vastly expand next year, will respect Americans’ privacy.
What could possibly go wrong? Aside from everything? Will Americans tolerate an out-of-control agency intruding ever further into their lives? The Washington Post warned in 2019 that airport facial recognition systems are “America’s biggest step yet to normalize treating our faces as data that can be stored, tracked and, inevitably, stolen.” (Federal records of citizens’ photos were already filched in a 2019 “malicious cyberattack.”)
“Trust us” is the TSA mantra for its new Credential Authentication Technology program. TSA is one of the most secretive domestic agencies and is notoriously non-compliant with the Freedom of Information Act.
“TSA hasn’t actually released hard data about how often its system falsely identifies people, through incorrect positive or negative matches,” The Washington Post recently noted. TSA will be relying on photo identification systems that have a misidentification error rate up to 100 times higher for Blacks and Hispanics. The ACLU tested facial recognition systems in 2018 by running photos of members of Congress through a massive data of police mug shots, and 28 lawmakers “were incorrectly matched to people charged with a crime.” Actually, the number of congressmen who have committed criminal offenses is probably far higher but the matches to those specific mug shots were erroneous.
TSA is already partnering with the Customs and Border Patrol agency to compel any American entering or leaving the nation to submit to being photographed for their database. That initiative was launched by the Trump administration and spurred plenty of Republican cheering on Capitol Hill. That program is named “Biometric Entry/Exit.” A better name would be: Nobody Leaves Without Uncle Sam’s Permission. But since the program will rely on computer databases instead of a Berlin Wall, nobody should worry. “Biometric Entry/Exit” sets a precedent for federal controls over Americans’ movement inside the U.S.
TSA will be capitalizing on vast federal poaching of state and local records, as well as online records. As Techdirt reported, “Federal investigators have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.” The FBI is regularly tapping into databases with more than 600 million facial photos. As Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center noted, “A 2019 report revealed that the federal government has turned state drivers’ license photos into a giant facial recognition database, putting virtually every driver in America in a perpetual electronic police lineup.”
“Mission creep” will likely follow the rollout of TSA’s facial round-up. The ACLU warns that “there will be enormous pressure to turn those [TSA facial] checkpoints into broader law enforcement checkpoints where people are subject to watchlist, criminal, and immigration checks.” There are reports that the CIA and FBI “already want to leverage TSA checkpoints for law enforcement and intelligence purposes…pressure will build to expand it further and try to identify everyone from parole violators to deadbeat dads,” according to an ACLU White Paper.
Never forget that TSA also promised to protect privacy a dozen years ago when it rolled out the Whole Body Scanners, often derided as “nudie scanners.”
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