17 ms·

JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

409 points by wizeman 7y ago

breakingcups 7y ago
That's just bizarre. This would never, ever, fly under the GDPR.
- resoluteteeth 7y ago
  Are you sure? According to what the airline said, the airline doesn't have the facial recognition data; rather they are just taking photos from passengers who opt in to board via this method, and the photos only need to be stored for a few seconds so they can be sent to DHS for verification. The airline isn't taking or storing photos of passengers who don't opt into this process, but it is presumably sending the government a list of all passengers prior to boarding so that photos of passengers who opt in can be verified. Would this violate the GDPR?
  - viraptor 7y ago
    s/who opt in/who don't opt out/ according to the tweets. But you're right, and the process is surprisingly reasonable as long as the implementation is safe
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    do you actually believe that the twitter PR person has enough technical knowledge of this process to make such bold claims as to whether they store people's data or not? And if you do believe they would have enough knowledge, do you believe they would EVER tell the truth?
    - zaat 7y ago
      I believe the PR person have the knowledge by proxy, someone is directing him. I also believe that DHS won't give them sensitive information without requiring them to conform to the relevant regulations. I can't say I'm certain it is fail-proof, and it defiantly can feel spooky but not everybody is lying to you all the time. From the article the PR quoted, I arrived to the relevant executive order that facilitated this, section 8: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states-2/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
  - ProAm 7y ago
    > According to what the airline said, the airline doesn't have the facial recognition data I absolutely do not believe the tweets from a company PR representative as to how their technology actually works.
    - kruegel 7y ago
      Regardless of whether this PR person knows anything or not, I think the much more likely scenario is that they are sending facial recognition requests to a CBP API vs. building their own facial recognition database with 100s of millions of identities out of thin air.
      - craftinator 7y ago
        But they have your photo after they take it, and the CBP verifies for them who you are. From this information transfer, the airline can replicate the CBP database entry for each person that it takes a picture of... In the long run, they can build a facial recognition database of everyone who flies. Am I wrong about this?
        oh_sigh 7y ago
        No, but whether they actually are or not is another question. They could also build the same database 10 years ago by taking your picture as you scanned your boarding pass.
        craftinator 7y ago
        I haven't done international travel (by normal means), have they always taken your picture for that? Thanks for the info!
        oh_sigh 7y ago
        No, but they could surreptitiously take your photo if they wanted to. I doubt there is much expectation of privacy at an airport gate
  - ttul 7y ago
    The government already sees all the flight manifests. Assuming that it also has a database of photos from passports, the matching process doesn't violate anyone's privacy, since they opted in to have their photo matched in the first place.
- code4tee 7y ago
  I’ve used similar systems recently in Europe so it would appear GDPR is cool with it... It seems they are simply asking for identify verification by sending the photo to a remote DHS server for verification. How is this different than showing a ticket agent your passport and having them scan it? That’s the same photo in question. GDPR doesn’t get you out of having to verify your identity in person against a government photo for boarding a flight. In fact, one could argue the method in question is actually more secure and private because you never actually have to share your passport photo directly with JetBlue.
- notimetorelax 7y ago
  In this case since the company does not store the images GDPR doesn’t apply.
  - wizeman 7y ago
    Doesn't the GDPR also apply to entities that process personal data (as opposed to only those that store it)? AFAIK it should apply to entities that share personal data with third parties, for instance.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    Even if they don't retain the images, it's a veritable treasure trove for security agencies, who will almost certainly be hoovering them up, either with or without the company's knowledge.
    - iNate2000 7y ago
      It's been a few years since I traveled international - but CBP already takes pictures at passport control, don't they?
      - jrockway 7y ago
        I have never had my picture taken while leaving the United States, which is what this sounds like. Arriving? Sure.
        unreal37 7y ago
        You have not had this knowingly. You have not posed for a photo. But surely, the government has plenty of cameras in customs areas and face recognition has been a thing for a decade.
        acct1771 7y ago
        Now think about the attributes they're recording from your phone when you approach.
- amichal 7y ago
  it would actually, biometric ids etc are allowed for various regulated reasons -- identifying folks who cross national boundaries is likely one of them
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  I believe that if you study the language of the GDPR, you'll find that "it's OK if the government does it."
- ferongr 7y ago
  Implying that European states would pass laws that limited their power over the cizitenry.
- ajross 7y ago
  Driver's licenses surely have photos still in EU nations, right? I don't think the GDPR speaks to this.
- nemothekid 7y ago
  If I am understanding this correctly this would be ok under the GDPR because the government is the one holding the data bag. They got the images from CBP.
crazygringo 7y ago
Most relevant details, from the last link [1]: > It took her photo, comparing her picture to a preloaded photo databased of all the passengers with tickets on this flight, and then she got a check mark, indicating she was cleared to board. The whole process took about five to six seconds. > The Aruba experiment is expected to last somewhere between 45 and 90 days. > "We're basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They're identifying the traveler," Farrell said. "It's actually the U.S. government that's implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data." > A biometric exit system to track non-U.S. citizens using their faces or fingerprints has long been a congressional mandate, particularly after 9/11, to improve border security and identify people who've overstayed their visas. > Crockford says people don't know how CBP might share that data with local police. CBP insists it'll discard photos taken of citizens, and only keep a database of non-citizens. > Customs and Border Protection has been piloting similar biometric tests at airports in Atlanta, New York and the D.C. area. And, according to a customs official, the goal is to deploy facial recognition tech widely by early next year. I guess it must be comparing with their passport photo? (Or visa photo, for foreigners?) It doesn't seem much different from the way you're already required to show your physical passport and they check your photo manually. It's also always been pretty normal to have your photo taken by countries when passing through passport control. So I don't really see what the problem would be here? [1] https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/06/21/jetblue-facial-recognition-pilot https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/06/21/jetblue-facial-re...
- chatmasta 7y ago
  Is it really that useful to identify someone who has overstayed their visa when they are leaving the country? Sure, you then know not to let them in next time. But it seems like a lot of effort when there are so many people overstaying their visa and not leaving out of the airports. That said, even as a libertarian, privacy-conscious person, I'm not sure I have a problem with exit controls like this. It's important to know who is crossing the border, in both directions. But why do they even need the photo? Presumably the name is already on the ticket... surely they can detect overstays from names + address alone, not just photos?
joezydeco 7y ago
I guess now we all know what the REAL ID act was about. https://www.dhs.gov/real-id https://www.dhs.gov/real-id
- tracker1 7y ago
  Exactly... my only real issue with this is that you are restricted from travel by other conventional means (bus), and are also restricted from being able to leave the country without it (of course being up to other countries to let you enter without it).
- amichal 7y ago
  This was somewhat explicitly what REAL ID was about. Provide name age, address and photo to the feds along with any related state ID info (which often correlates easily with fed info). I would not be surprised if airport cameras already put "citizen ids" on photos for the right folks...
  - Gaelan 7y ago
    IDK enough about this to know who's right, but the DHS denies this: > Is DHS trying to build a national database with all of our information? > No. REAL ID is a national set of standards, not a national identification card. REAL ID does not create a federal database of driver license information. Each jurisdiction continues to issue its own unique license, maintains its own records, and controls who gets access to those records and under what circumstances. The purpose of REAL ID is to make our identity documents more consistent and secure.
tracker1 7y ago
Given the new Travel ID requirements coming up, I'm not surprised in the slightest by this.
lurquer 7y ago
The passenger seems surprised that her picture has been taken and stored... I wonder if she realizes her picture is on her twitter account?
- waiseristy 7y ago
  Isn't it a bit different have a photo tied to an ostensibly anonymous internet account which you have control over, and have a photo that is legally tied to your person and leased out by the government?
  - iNate2000 7y ago
    CBP already has my photo and name from my passport.
  - jancsika 7y ago
    The person's twitter account uses their given name with a personal photo. So replace "ostensibly" with "absolutely not." Also, let's assume we're talking reality and not theory. Given that, what's the difference between JetBlue querying a proprietary goldmine of data (or multiple ones) vs. querying a (probably) proprietary goldmine of data that was collected through a contract with DHS? In either instance, the short term solution would be to generate negative publicity for JetBlue until they cancel the program. Also in either instance, the only conceivable way to keep the goldmine off limits would be through federal legislation.
    - lurquer 7y ago
      I think the horse has already left the barn. An individual with $500 worth of equipment could quickly create a database of facial biometrics for a good portion of his city. What kind of legislation could prevent this? Outlaw private ownerships of cameras and computers? I do not think there is any way to stop what is coming...
      - acct1771 7y ago
        It's the power inherent to the holder of that database that makes the difference...
apcragg 7y ago
Privacy concerns aside, I can't wait to read the "Facial Recognition let me on the wrong flight when I got in the wrong line by accident" articles that are going to come out of this. Unless these systems have some fantastic (1e-6) P_{false alarm} rate or better, people are going to be mistaken for other people and let on the wrong flight sooner or later.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  You need at least 2 people for this mixup to happen...
  - davrosthedalek 7y ago
    Well, you have to hit a no-show. Gives you maybe another two order of magnitude. And the article might be written even if the misidentification was resolved before the flight leaves.
  - fcarraldo 7y ago
    You don’t, really. Whoever is checked in first gets the seat. The second person will be questioned, and hopefully it will be cleared up. With the number of flights in and out of the US each day, it’s bound to happen unless the false positive rate is extremely low, which would only be possible through an extremely invasive cataloguing of photographs beyond those taken for DMV and Passport photos.
- dv_dt 7y ago
  I'm predicting perfectly innocent people who happen to have some algorithmic resemblance to some murderers and terrorists to be detained.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    They already do this based on names. A former coworker shared his name with his grandfather, and both of them matched the name of a man on the terror watchlist. Naturally, the man was much younger than both of them and of a different nationality, but that didn't stop his grandfather (~50 years older!) from getting stopped and questioned every time he flew.
kruegel 7y ago
> Was my image, in the space of those seconds, sent to CBP, run through a database, matched to a name, and then sent back to @JetBlue? Actually, it was probably done in a fraction of a second.
- unreal37 7y ago
  Yes, that was a funny thing she tweeted. So surprised that a few KB of data was transmitted on a high speed network in under a second. :)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
jacklewis 7y ago
Here in Australia we have automated passport control gates that scan a chip in our passport then takes a photo of our face (and I assume does some matching with our passport photo) before allowing reentry. It's quite quick and very convenient. Although I'm not aware of any airlines being able to use the system for boarding.
- jzwinck 7y ago
  Even better, many foreign visitors can use the same system to enter Australia. Lots of countries have fully automated entry for citizens but by doing it for foreigners, Oz is ahead of the game.
- marco_salvatori 7y ago
  Traveling extensively the past year I have noticed the following which are probably all coming into our lives soon. (a) In many countries border entry is accompanied by a fingerprint scan which will be either a left and right index finger scan or a scan of the whole left hand. The scans are done at inbound border crossings in conjunction with the passport check. (b) In many countries both border exit and entry are paired with the taking of a photograph. In some places it appears the exit photograph is validated automatically by software. (c) In some cities, the subways have security checks at entry and in those places photographs are taken, non obviously, by the security equipment. I am not sure how effective these systems are at tracking. I guessing ideally governments would like to pair these photos with a passive probe of something carried on the body like a phone or official id, something that could link the photo to an already verified identity. (d) On country entry, purchases like SIM cards for local telephone service or public transportation pass cards can only be acquired if one presents an official id. Manual computer entry usually links the card to the presented id. And here is a prediction, getting a record of faces and fingerprints, and tracking movement is on the agenda right now. In the future there will be a equally focused agenda to acquire records of peoples DNA. In countries where there is nationalized health service, it will eventually be required. Aquisition will begin when the cost of storing, acquiring, and searching that DNA information becomes cheap enough.
- darkhorn 7y ago
  Same in Europe. You arrive at Frankfurt Airport. None EU citizens are questioned as if they are terrorists. I go to electronic doors. I put my EU passport to the gate. The camera scans my face and then computer compares it with the photo in my EU passport (there is HD photo within the passport chip). And the door opens. I'm back home in EU. No police, no border control other than that few seconds camera check. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.innovalor.nfciddocshowcase https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.innovalor.n...
tootie 7y ago
Can biometric data be hashed like a password would be? Or is the signal too noisy?
- Rapzid 7y ago
  I would guess they encrypt whatever they send to DHS. Hashing would destroy all the information required to make a match.
  - shoo 7y ago
    not necessarily, consider e.g. https://medium.com/value-stream-design/introducing-one-of-the-best-hacks-in-machine-learning-the-hashing-trick-bf6a9c8af18f https://medium.com/value-stream-design/introducing-one-of-th...
- shoo 7y ago
  if you regard hashing as dimensionality reduction, there's certainly hashing involved -- some machine learning pipeline will consume high dimensional raw image data and map it into a lower dimensional feature space on the other hand, for cryptographic hashing we want very similar but inequal inputs to be hashed to wildly different outputs, so a useful hash function should be highly nonlinear / discontinuous, small changes in the input leading to huge changes in the output. if we're hashing in machine learning, we probably want the hash function to be (crudely) continuous functions -- with "similar" inputs hashed to similar values, so we can operate on the hashed values to cluster or classify things. we dont want a bit of "noise" in the input to produce a massive difference in the lower dimensional feature space.
lucisferre 7y ago
What is tiring me out about all this "technology improvement" in airport check-in is how confusing it is and how often it changes. There is no one clear process anymore. Last week I went to board a flight and checked in using the phone app. At the airport I needed to get a baggage ticket so I used the machine there for that, but it basically had me go through the whole check-in all over again. On top of that the first machine errored during the step to pay the baggage fee so I ended up doing that again with another machine. Afterwards I went to drop off my bag and was told the tag was not "active" and I'd have to go to the desk. What the hell is the point of any of these electronic options if at the end of it all I still have to wait in line for an agent, stand there while they "mmm-hmmm" at their computer and avoid eye-contact with me for 5 minutes just to finally scan the tag I had printed and attached myself?
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  Automation and self-serve makes sense even if N% of people fall through the cracks. As long as N is small enough that you can comfortably reduce headcount while not degrading customer experience.
  - lucisferre 7y ago
    In my case I'm pretty sure N is 100%
- basicplus2 7y ago
  Its probably more about info on how they will load the aircraft ahead of time to ensure those calcs are done in time
  - shard972 7y ago
    At the airports in Australia at least the machines weigh the bags and everything so I don't see why that means you still need a human to do it again for you.
yalogin 7y ago
I can bet that they have a copy of all photos on their servers. No company will be foolish enough to build a business/service that relies on another entity, much so a government organization that is not known for building highly scalable services. This is a crucial part of their process and any delays will impact their bottom line. So they have all faces with them and so does every other company. Also, just the face is not enough, they need all the other identifying info associated with it. So they got everything. Also, the government organization is not foolish enough to build such a service they get to be blamed for. They gave/sold that data away. Just the face is of no use, the identifying information that goes along with it is also given. So at this point any company in the US can just query your entire info from your photo. Privacy is dead and it is provided as a service by the government. Wonderful. Question is can anyone get this data?
- mienski 7y ago
  While I’m totally onboard with the privacy concerns, this is ridiculous FUD to just assume that every company just took on the security and storage risk of holding that data. Find me an enterprise department/exec that would willingly take that on to support a trial. The corporate bogeyman is a great story but I think you’re being a little unrealistic here. These systems typically allow the picture to be sent in with a name, and the system returns a success or fail response.
  - seandougall 7y ago
    I don’t disagree with your overarching point, but it can’t be quite that simple, if it works as advertised. In order for it to send a name with the photo, the passenger would have to scan some sort of documentation to provide their name, which would defeat the purpose of “your face is your boarding pass”. It seems more likely that the CBP system compares against passenger manifests of upcoming flights. Which isn’t necessarily more intrusive, but it is a bit less straightforward than a simple yes/no query.
  - yalogin 7y ago
    I don’t think so. I am being completely reasonable and rational here. Let me ask this, what is special about JetBlue? If JetBlue doesn’t host the service on their data centers would they be willing to offer such a service? If a government agency can reasonably be expected to not play favorites and offer the service to anyone within reason, do you think they will be able to scale it up and offer the kind of SLAa expected by money making businesses? Why would an agency want to get in to that endeavor? Please, offer me alternative view points rather than calling my theory FUD.
Causality1 7y ago
Yet another example that if something profitable is both technically possible and legal, it IS being done whether you know about it or not.
willart4food 7y ago
It's kind of surprising that we're still surprised by this.
- kzrdude 7y ago
  It's good that we are surprised. The total surveillance system is being normalized far too quickly. At this rate, in 10 years we will see even more "conveniences" like for example automatic face id in shops and on websites that pull your payment information and can authorize payments from your card/account - with no setup. People will say "Kinda spooky how they can just take my money automatically but it's convenient" and you'll be there to say "It's kind of surprising that we're still surprised by this." ;-) I hope! That will be underpinned by even larger surveillance and data collections on people, that can do a lot of harm when/if data is leaked or the systems are breached.
  - Ace_Archer 7y ago
    This is already closer than you think, Amazon actually has a physical store exactly like this: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16008589011 https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16008589011
scarejunba 7y ago
Honestly, if implanting a chip in my arm meant I could just walk through immigration/customs/check-in without carrying anything I'd do it. I have Global Entry so things are already pretty good but I'd give them anything to ease the process. And it's not like I'm going to lose my arm in the normal run of play so that's even better than my passport.
modzu 7y ago
see also how Runa Sandvik got a copy of all her photos from the DHS: https://medium.com/matter/how-i-requested-my-photographs-from-the-department-of-homeland-security-97ec2d51f7a0 https://medium.com/matter/how-i-requested-my-photographs-fro...
tehjoker 7y ago
This essentially gives the government much tighter control of a process that, while decent, has some loose ends in it. For instance, document forging is something that is less effective than it used to be given digital chips and facial recognition. It is of course legitimate for a democracy to check things like which plants are coming across the border and to deny access or apprehend war criminals and the like. However, the USG does not have a current record of using its powers for good recently. Example: the muslim ban. Anyone who managed to get around that is a hero even if it was illegal because it's an immoral policy. Tighter control means tighter control of dissent. Want to find that soldier with those leaked documents? Want to locate that journalist with news of unseemly interventions in central America? Want to find those people of the wrong race or religion that are the convenient scapegoat of the moment? Sure, let's make border control more precise. Most people are actually decent and should have default global freedom to move and work by birthright. US border control is about denying people entry, but the main effect is denying ordinary people with a minor effect of deterring crime.
- Lost_BiomedE 7y ago
  We have yet to see another Stalin with all this new tech. Something I hope we never see. I wish Gulag Archipelago was history 101 at university.
  - raquo 7y ago
    New Stalin style dictatorships are unlikely to arise in developed countries. A gradual descend into modern-Russia style governance is much more likely. We have learned a lot about building stable power structures in the last 50 years. You don't need to have a death grip on everything in the country. A much softer touch is the technique of choice of modern oppressive regimes. Why disallow other parties when you can just make sure the right party always wins? Why get rid of capitalism if you can just pick the winners? Why censor information when you can drown the airwaves in fake news? Why purge dissidents if they have no power to change things? Why control what people do when you can control what people want to do?
    - 7y ago
unit_circle 7y ago
This is dope
spullara 7y ago
It is annoying that the title of the article is inaccurate. They use an API that calls external government servers to compare the photos.
- ShakataGaNai 7y ago
  To be fair, it's not clear how these devices work. It sounds like they are taking a photo, submittiting it to an API and waiting for a result. However FTA linked in the Twitter exchange "preloaded photo databased of all the passengers". It implies that the devices that JetBlue are using for boarding, already have all the photos in them. If this hardware belongs to JetBlue (rather than CBP/DHS/etc), then one would be correct in saying that JetBlue has the passengers photos. So we really don't know either way how this works. I'll also add my personal anecdote: Recently I flew internationally out of SFO (I live in the Bay Area) and CBP was there to take "exit photos" of everyone with similar style devices. This was not part of the boarding pass process as we still had to do scan tickets afterwards.
  - aepiepaey 7y ago
    The same article later states > "We're basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They're identifying the traveler," Farrell said. "It's actually the U.S. government that's implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data." So I'd say it's more likely that it is CBP who has the database (and not JetBlue).
teekert 7y ago
I work for a large company that uses genomics data for health care related research. The GDPR is a huge pain in our butts. But man do I love the "people over companies" attitude of this law as a citizen.
AnnoyingSwede 7y ago
I am curious to how this would work if 2 twins travel together. If it would mismatch or demand both to verify with a manual check?
dbrgn 7y ago
I sense there's a business opportunity for "finding another person's data that looks very similar to you according to facial recognition models"... If there is such a person, you could sign up with their name / birthdate and walk through the control points without having to show your ID (which you didn't bring "because you thought the face ID was sufficient").
rneiss 7y ago
Delta too -- though they've been less responsive: https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/1123284587063513088 https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/11232845870635130...

409 points by wizeman 7y ago

breakingcups 7y ago

That's just bizarre. This would never, ever, fly under the GDPR.

resoluteteeth 7y ago
Are you sure? According to what the airline said, the airline doesn't have the facial recognition data; rather they are just taking photos from passengers who opt in to board via this method, and the photos only need to be stored for a few seconds so they can be sent to DHS for verification. The airline isn't taking or storing photos of passengers who don't opt into this process, but it is presumably sending the government a list of all passengers prior to boarding so that photos of passengers who opt in can be verified. Would this violate the GDPR?
- viraptor 7y ago
  s/who opt in/who don't opt out/ according to the tweets. But you're right, and the process is surprisingly reasonable as long as the implementation is safe
- bluntfang 7y ago
  do you actually believe that the twitter PR person has enough technical knowledge of this process to make such bold claims as to whether they store people's data or not? And if you do believe they would have enough knowledge, do you believe they would EVER tell the truth?
  - zaat 7y ago
    I believe the PR person have the knowledge by proxy, someone is directing him. I also believe that DHS won't give them sensitive information without requiring them to conform to the relevant regulations. I can't say I'm certain it is fail-proof, and it defiantly can feel spooky but not everybody is lying to you all the time. From the article the PR quoted, I arrived to the relevant executive order that facilitated this, section 8: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states-2/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-or...
- ProAm 7y ago
  > According to what the airline said, the airline doesn't have the facial recognition data I absolutely do not believe the tweets from a company PR representative as to how their technology actually works.
  - kruegel 7y ago
    Regardless of whether this PR person knows anything or not, I think the much more likely scenario is that they are sending facial recognition requests to a CBP API vs. building their own facial recognition database with 100s of millions of identities out of thin air.
    - craftinator 7y ago
      But they have your photo after they take it, and the CBP verifies for them who you are. From this information transfer, the airline can replicate the CBP database entry for each person that it takes a picture of... In the long run, they can build a facial recognition database of everyone who flies. Am I wrong about this?
      - oh_sigh 7y ago
        No, but whether they actually are or not is another question. They could also build the same database 10 years ago by taking your picture as you scanned your boarding pass.
        craftinator 7y ago
        I haven't done international travel (by normal means), have they always taken your picture for that? Thanks for the info!
        oh_sigh 7y ago
        No, but they could surreptitiously take your photo if they wanted to. I doubt there is much expectation of privacy at an airport gate
- ttul 7y ago
  The government already sees all the flight manifests. Assuming that it also has a database of photos from passports, the matching process doesn't violate anyone's privacy, since they opted in to have their photo matched in the first place.
code4tee 7y ago
I’ve used similar systems recently in Europe so it would appear GDPR is cool with it... It seems they are simply asking for identify verification by sending the photo to a remote DHS server for verification. How is this different than showing a ticket agent your passport and having them scan it? That’s the same photo in question. GDPR doesn’t get you out of having to verify your identity in person against a government photo for boarding a flight. In fact, one could argue the method in question is actually more secure and private because you never actually have to share your passport photo directly with JetBlue.
notimetorelax 7y ago
In this case since the company does not store the images GDPR doesn’t apply.
- wizeman 7y ago
  Doesn't the GDPR also apply to entities that process personal data (as opposed to only those that store it)? AFAIK it should apply to entities that share personal data with third parties, for instance.
- GordonS 7y ago
  Even if they don't retain the images, it's a veritable treasure trove for security agencies, who will almost certainly be hoovering them up, either with or without the company's knowledge.
  - iNate2000 7y ago
    It's been a few years since I traveled international - but CBP already takes pictures at passport control, don't they?
    - jrockway 7y ago
      I have never had my picture taken while leaving the United States, which is what this sounds like. Arriving? Sure.
      - unreal37 7y ago
        You have not had this knowingly. You have not posed for a photo. But surely, the government has plenty of cameras in customs areas and face recognition has been a thing for a decade.
        acct1771 7y ago
        Now think about the attributes they're recording from your phone when you approach.
amichal 7y ago
it would actually, biometric ids etc are allowed for various regulated reasons -- identifying folks who cross national boundaries is likely one of them
CamperBob2 7y ago
I believe that if you study the language of the GDPR, you'll find that "it's OK if the government does it."
ferongr 7y ago
Implying that European states would pass laws that limited their power over the cizitenry.
ajross 7y ago
Driver's licenses surely have photos still in EU nations, right? I don't think the GDPR speaks to this.
nemothekid 7y ago
If I am understanding this correctly this would be ok under the GDPR because the government is the one holding the data bag. They got the images from CBP.

crazygringo 7y ago

Most relevant details, from the last link [1]: > It took her photo, comparing her picture to a preloaded photo databased of all the passengers with tickets on this flight, and then she got a check mark, indicating she was cleared to board. The whole process took about five to six seconds. > The Aruba experiment is expected to last somewhere between 45 and 90 days. > "We're basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They're identifying the traveler," Farrell said. "It's actually the U.S. government that's implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data." > A biometric exit system to track non-U.S. citizens using their faces or fingerprints has long been a congressional mandate, particularly after 9/11, to improve border security and identify people who've overstayed their visas. > Crockford says people don't know how CBP might share that data with local police. CBP insists it'll discard photos taken of citizens, and only keep a database of non-citizens. > Customs and Border Protection has been piloting similar biometric tests at airports in Atlanta, New York and the D.C. area. And, according to a customs official, the goal is to deploy facial recognition tech widely by early next year. I guess it must be comparing with their passport photo? (Or visa photo, for foreigners?) It doesn't seem much different from the way you're already required to show your physical passport and they check your photo manually. It's also always been pretty normal to have your photo taken by countries when passing through passport control. So I don't really see what the problem would be here? [1] https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/06/21/jetblue-facial-recognition-pilot https://www.wbur.org/bostonomix/2017/06/21/jetblue-facial-re...

chatmasta 7y ago
Is it really that useful to identify someone who has overstayed their visa when they are leaving the country? Sure, you then know not to let them in next time. But it seems like a lot of effort when there are so many people overstaying their visa and not leaving out of the airports. That said, even as a libertarian, privacy-conscious person, I'm not sure I have a problem with exit controls like this. It's important to know who is crossing the border, in both directions. But why do they even need the photo? Presumably the name is already on the ticket... surely they can detect overstays from names + address alone, not just photos?

joezydeco 7y ago

I guess now we all know what the REAL ID act was about. https://www.dhs.gov/real-id https://www.dhs.gov/real-id

tracker1 7y ago
Exactly... my only real issue with this is that you are restricted from travel by other conventional means (bus), and are also restricted from being able to leave the country without it (of course being up to other countries to let you enter without it).
amichal 7y ago
This was somewhat explicitly what REAL ID was about. Provide name age, address and photo to the feds along with any related state ID info (which often correlates easily with fed info). I would not be surprised if airport cameras already put "citizen ids" on photos for the right folks...
- Gaelan 7y ago
  IDK enough about this to know who's right, but the DHS denies this: > Is DHS trying to build a national database with all of our information? > No. REAL ID is a national set of standards, not a national identification card. REAL ID does not create a federal database of driver license information. Each jurisdiction continues to issue its own unique license, maintains its own records, and controls who gets access to those records and under what circumstances. The purpose of REAL ID is to make our identity documents more consistent and secure.

tracker1 7y ago

Given the new Travel ID requirements coming up, I'm not surprised in the slightest by this.

lurquer 7y ago

The passenger seems surprised that her picture has been taken and stored... I wonder if she realizes her picture is on her twitter account?

waiseristy 7y ago
Isn't it a bit different have a photo tied to an ostensibly anonymous internet account which you have control over, and have a photo that is legally tied to your person and leased out by the government?
- iNate2000 7y ago
  CBP already has my photo and name from my passport.
- jancsika 7y ago
  The person's twitter account uses their given name with a personal photo. So replace "ostensibly" with "absolutely not." Also, let's assume we're talking reality and not theory. Given that, what's the difference between JetBlue querying a proprietary goldmine of data (or multiple ones) vs. querying a (probably) proprietary goldmine of data that was collected through a contract with DHS? In either instance, the short term solution would be to generate negative publicity for JetBlue until they cancel the program. Also in either instance, the only conceivable way to keep the goldmine off limits would be through federal legislation.
  - lurquer 7y ago
    I think the horse has already left the barn. An individual with $500 worth of equipment could quickly create a database of facial biometrics for a good portion of his city. What kind of legislation could prevent this? Outlaw private ownerships of cameras and computers? I do not think there is any way to stop what is coming...
    - acct1771 7y ago
      It's the power inherent to the holder of that database that makes the difference...

apcragg 7y ago

Privacy concerns aside, I can't wait to read the "Facial Recognition let me on the wrong flight when I got in the wrong line by accident" articles that are going to come out of this. Unless these systems have some fantastic (1e-6) P_{false alarm} rate or better, people are going to be mistaken for other people and let on the wrong flight sooner or later.

dzhiurgis 7y ago
You need at least 2 people for this mixup to happen...
- davrosthedalek 7y ago
  Well, you have to hit a no-show. Gives you maybe another two order of magnitude. And the article might be written even if the misidentification was resolved before the flight leaves.
- fcarraldo 7y ago
  You don’t, really. Whoever is checked in first gets the seat. The second person will be questioned, and hopefully it will be cleared up. With the number of flights in and out of the US each day, it’s bound to happen unless the false positive rate is extremely low, which would only be possible through an extremely invasive cataloguing of photographs beyond those taken for DMV and Passport photos.
dv_dt 7y ago
I'm predicting perfectly innocent people who happen to have some algorithmic resemblance to some murderers and terrorists to be detained.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  They already do this based on names. A former coworker shared his name with his grandfather, and both of them matched the name of a man on the terror watchlist. Naturally, the man was much younger than both of them and of a different nationality, but that didn't stop his grandfather (~50 years older!) from getting stopped and questioned every time he flew.

kruegel 7y ago

> Was my image, in the space of those seconds, sent to CBP, run through a database, matched to a name, and then sent back to @JetBlue? Actually, it was probably done in a fraction of a second.

unreal37 7y ago
Yes, that was a funny thing she tweeted. So surprised that a few KB of data was transmitted on a high speed network in under a second. :)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

jacklewis 7y ago

Here in Australia we have automated passport control gates that scan a chip in our passport then takes a photo of our face (and I assume does some matching with our passport photo) before allowing reentry. It's quite quick and very convenient. Although I'm not aware of any airlines being able to use the system for boarding.

jzwinck 7y ago
Even better, many foreign visitors can use the same system to enter Australia. Lots of countries have fully automated entry for citizens but by doing it for foreigners, Oz is ahead of the game.
marco_salvatori 7y ago
Traveling extensively the past year I have noticed the following which are probably all coming into our lives soon. (a) In many countries border entry is accompanied by a fingerprint scan which will be either a left and right index finger scan or a scan of the whole left hand. The scans are done at inbound border crossings in conjunction with the passport check. (b) In many countries both border exit and entry are paired with the taking of a photograph. In some places it appears the exit photograph is validated automatically by software. (c) In some cities, the subways have security checks at entry and in those places photographs are taken, non obviously, by the security equipment. I am not sure how effective these systems are at tracking. I guessing ideally governments would like to pair these photos with a passive probe of something carried on the body like a phone or official id, something that could link the photo to an already verified identity. (d) On country entry, purchases like SIM cards for local telephone service or public transportation pass cards can only be acquired if one presents an official id. Manual computer entry usually links the card to the presented id. And here is a prediction, getting a record of faces and fingerprints, and tracking movement is on the agenda right now. In the future there will be a equally focused agenda to acquire records of peoples DNA. In countries where there is nationalized health service, it will eventually be required. Aquisition will begin when the cost of storing, acquiring, and searching that DNA information becomes cheap enough.
darkhorn 7y ago
Same in Europe. You arrive at Frankfurt Airport. None EU citizens are questioned as if they are terrorists. I go to electronic doors. I put my EU passport to the gate. The camera scans my face and then computer compares it with the photo in my EU passport (there is HD photo within the passport chip). And the door opens. I'm back home in EU. No police, no border control other than that few seconds camera check. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_passport https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.innovalor.nfciddocshowcase https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nl.innovalor.n...

tootie 7y ago

Can biometric data be hashed like a password would be? Or is the signal too noisy?

Rapzid 7y ago
I would guess they encrypt whatever they send to DHS. Hashing would destroy all the information required to make a match.
- shoo 7y ago
  not necessarily, consider e.g. https://medium.com/value-stream-design/introducing-one-of-the-best-hacks-in-machine-learning-the-hashing-trick-bf6a9c8af18f https://medium.com/value-stream-design/introducing-one-of-th...
shoo 7y ago
if you regard hashing as dimensionality reduction, there's certainly hashing involved -- some machine learning pipeline will consume high dimensional raw image data and map it into a lower dimensional feature space on the other hand, for cryptographic hashing we want very similar but inequal inputs to be hashed to wildly different outputs, so a useful hash function should be highly nonlinear / discontinuous, small changes in the input leading to huge changes in the output. if we're hashing in machine learning, we probably want the hash function to be (crudely) continuous functions -- with "similar" inputs hashed to similar values, so we can operate on the hashed values to cluster or classify things. we dont want a bit of "noise" in the input to produce a massive difference in the lower dimensional feature space.

lucisferre 7y ago

What is tiring me out about all this "technology improvement" in airport check-in is how confusing it is and how often it changes. There is no one clear process anymore. Last week I went to board a flight and checked in using the phone app. At the airport I needed to get a baggage ticket so I used the machine there for that, but it basically had me go through the whole check-in all over again. On top of that the first machine errored during the step to pay the baggage fee so I ended up doing that again with another machine. Afterwards I went to drop off my bag and was told the tag was not "active" and I'd have to go to the desk. What the hell is the point of any of these electronic options if at the end of it all I still have to wait in line for an agent, stand there while they "mmm-hmmm" at their computer and avoid eye-contact with me for 5 minutes just to finally scan the tag I had printed and attached myself?

throwawayjava 7y ago
Automation and self-serve makes sense even if N% of people fall through the cracks. As long as N is small enough that you can comfortably reduce headcount while not degrading customer experience.
- lucisferre 7y ago
  In my case I'm pretty sure N is 100%
basicplus2 7y ago
Its probably more about info on how they will load the aircraft ahead of time to ensure those calcs are done in time
- shard972 7y ago
  At the airports in Australia at least the machines weigh the bags and everything so I don't see why that means you still need a human to do it again for you.

yalogin 7y ago

I can bet that they have a copy of all photos on their servers. No company will be foolish enough to build a business/service that relies on another entity, much so a government organization that is not known for building highly scalable services. This is a crucial part of their process and any delays will impact their bottom line. So they have all faces with them and so does every other company. Also, just the face is not enough, they need all the other identifying info associated with it. So they got everything. Also, the government organization is not foolish enough to build such a service they get to be blamed for. They gave/sold that data away. Just the face is of no use, the identifying information that goes along with it is also given. So at this point any company in the US can just query your entire info from your photo. Privacy is dead and it is provided as a service by the government. Wonderful. Question is can anyone get this data?

mienski 7y ago
While I’m totally onboard with the privacy concerns, this is ridiculous FUD to just assume that every company just took on the security and storage risk of holding that data. Find me an enterprise department/exec that would willingly take that on to support a trial. The corporate bogeyman is a great story but I think you’re being a little unrealistic here. These systems typically allow the picture to be sent in with a name, and the system returns a success or fail response.
- seandougall 7y ago
  I don’t disagree with your overarching point, but it can’t be quite that simple, if it works as advertised. In order for it to send a name with the photo, the passenger would have to scan some sort of documentation to provide their name, which would defeat the purpose of “your face is your boarding pass”. It seems more likely that the CBP system compares against passenger manifests of upcoming flights. Which isn’t necessarily more intrusive, but it is a bit less straightforward than a simple yes/no query.
- yalogin 7y ago
  I don’t think so. I am being completely reasonable and rational here. Let me ask this, what is special about JetBlue? If JetBlue doesn’t host the service on their data centers would they be willing to offer such a service? If a government agency can reasonably be expected to not play favorites and offer the service to anyone within reason, do you think they will be able to scale it up and offer the kind of SLAa expected by money making businesses? Why would an agency want to get in to that endeavor? Please, offer me alternative view points rather than calling my theory FUD.

Causality1 7y ago

Yet another example that if something profitable is both technically possible and legal, it IS being done whether you know about it or not.

willart4food 7y ago

It's kind of surprising that we're still surprised by this.

kzrdude 7y ago
It's good that we are surprised. The total surveillance system is being normalized far too quickly. At this rate, in 10 years we will see even more "conveniences" like for example automatic face id in shops and on websites that pull your payment information and can authorize payments from your card/account - with no setup. People will say "Kinda spooky how they can just take my money automatically but it's convenient" and you'll be there to say "It's kind of surprising that we're still surprised by this." ;-) I hope! That will be underpinned by even larger surveillance and data collections on people, that can do a lot of harm when/if data is leaked or the systems are breached.
- Ace_Archer 7y ago
  This is already closer than you think, Amazon actually has a physical store exactly like this: https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16008589011 https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16008589011

scarejunba 7y ago

Honestly, if implanting a chip in my arm meant I could just walk through immigration/customs/check-in without carrying anything I'd do it. I have Global Entry so things are already pretty good but I'd give them anything to ease the process. And it's not like I'm going to lose my arm in the normal run of play so that's even better than my passport.

modzu 7y ago

see also how Runa Sandvik got a copy of all her photos from the DHS: https://medium.com/matter/how-i-requested-my-photographs-from-the-department-of-homeland-security-97ec2d51f7a0 https://medium.com/matter/how-i-requested-my-photographs-fro...

tehjoker 7y ago

This essentially gives the government much tighter control of a process that, while decent, has some loose ends in it. For instance, document forging is something that is less effective than it used to be given digital chips and facial recognition. It is of course legitimate for a democracy to check things like which plants are coming across the border and to deny access or apprehend war criminals and the like. However, the USG does not have a current record of using its powers for good recently. Example: the muslim ban. Anyone who managed to get around that is a hero even if it was illegal because it's an immoral policy. Tighter control means tighter control of dissent. Want to find that soldier with those leaked documents? Want to locate that journalist with news of unseemly interventions in central America? Want to find those people of the wrong race or religion that are the convenient scapegoat of the moment? Sure, let's make border control more precise. Most people are actually decent and should have default global freedom to move and work by birthright. US border control is about denying people entry, but the main effect is denying ordinary people with a minor effect of deterring crime.

Lost_BiomedE 7y ago
We have yet to see another Stalin with all this new tech. Something I hope we never see. I wish Gulag Archipelago was history 101 at university.
- raquo 7y ago
  New Stalin style dictatorships are unlikely to arise in developed countries. A gradual descend into modern-Russia style governance is much more likely. We have learned a lot about building stable power structures in the last 50 years. You don't need to have a death grip on everything in the country. A much softer touch is the technique of choice of modern oppressive regimes. Why disallow other parties when you can just make sure the right party always wins? Why get rid of capitalism if you can just pick the winners? Why censor information when you can drown the airwaves in fake news? Why purge dissidents if they have no power to change things? Why control what people do when you can control what people want to do?
  - 7y ago

unit_circle 7y ago

This is dope

spullara 7y ago

It is annoying that the title of the article is inaccurate. They use an API that calls external government servers to compare the photos.

ShakataGaNai 7y ago
To be fair, it's not clear how these devices work. It sounds like they are taking a photo, submittiting it to an API and waiting for a result. However FTA linked in the Twitter exchange "preloaded photo databased of all the passengers". It implies that the devices that JetBlue are using for boarding, already have all the photos in them. If this hardware belongs to JetBlue (rather than CBP/DHS/etc), then one would be correct in saying that JetBlue has the passengers photos. So we really don't know either way how this works. I'll also add my personal anecdote: Recently I flew internationally out of SFO (I live in the Bay Area) and CBP was there to take "exit photos" of everyone with similar style devices. This was not part of the boarding pass process as we still had to do scan tickets afterwards.
- aepiepaey 7y ago
  The same article later states > "We're basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They're identifying the traveler," Farrell said. "It's actually the U.S. government that's implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data." So I'd say it's more likely that it is CBP who has the database (and not JetBlue).

teekert 7y ago

I work for a large company that uses genomics data for health care related research. The GDPR is a huge pain in our butts. But man do I love the "people over companies" attitude of this law as a citizen.

AnnoyingSwede 7y ago

I am curious to how this would work if 2 twins travel together. If it would mismatch or demand both to verify with a manual check?

dbrgn 7y ago

I sense there's a business opportunity for "finding another person's data that looks very similar to you according to facial recognition models"... If there is such a person, you could sign up with their name / birthdate and walk through the control points without having to show your ID (which you didn't bring "because you thought the face ID was sufficient").

rneiss 7y ago

Delta too -- though they've been less responsive: https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/1123284587063513088 https://twitter.com/RealPressSecBot/status/11232845870635130...