ALL travellers entering and leaving America could soon be scanned with face recognition technology, it’s reported. Homeland Security wants to expand existing rules to include American citizens, who were previously exempt from the mandatory checks. In a filing, the department has proposed all travellers – not just foreign nationals or visitors – should complete a […]
ALL travellers entering and leaving America could soon be scanned with face recognition technology, it’s reported.
Homeland Security wants to expand existing rules to include American citizens, who were previously exempt from the mandatory checks.
In a filing, the department has proposed all travellers – not just foreign nationals or visitors – should complete a facial recognition check before entering or leaving the country, reports CNN.
Facial recognition for departing flights has increased in recent years as part of Homeland Security’s drive to catch visitors who overstay their visas.
The department, whose responsibility is to protect the border and control immigration, has a deadline of 2021 to roll out facial recognition scanners to the largest 20 airports in the United States.
Facial recognition, which matches an image of a person from a photo with a still image of them in a database, is becoming increasingly common in airports throughout the world as airlines use it for security check-in purposes.
The US government has used the tech for around 20 years, but it has only recently ramped-up biometric boarding at airports.
In 2017 President Donald Trump signed an executive order to accelerate a full roll out of airport biometrics for all domestic and international travellers.
This move was also supported by the Obama Administration.
The DHS say the tech will help spot criminals and prevent travel-document fraud.
Once the preserve of sci-fi movies, facial recognition is now a mainstream technology.
Basically, it’s a way of identifying or verifying who a person by scanning their face with a computer.
Its main use is to make sure a person is who they say there are – like Apple’s Face ID, which uses facial recognition to unlock iPhones.
But it can also be used to identify people in crowds.
Chinese police are using smart glasses linked up to a database of faces to spot criminals at railway stations, for instance.
There are lots of different ways facial recognition can work.
For example, some Samsung phones use iris scanners to verify your identity using your eyes.
But the most common method of facial recognition will identify features on your entire face.
However, the American Civil Liberties Union said the filing contradicts US Customs and Border Protection’s previous statement that US citizens would not be subject to such surveillance.
ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said in a statement: “Travelers, including U.S. citizens, should not have to submit to invasive biometric scans simply as a condition of exercising their constitutional right to travel.
“The government’s insistence on hurtling forward with a large-scale deployment of this powerful surveillance technology raises profound privacy concerns.”
