11 ms·

TSA now wants to scan your face at security

38 points by mysterypie 4y ago

Shinmon 4y ago
Something similar is implemented in many German airports for EU citizens and it greatly reduces the time to enter the country. I know, this is some kind of privacy intrusion but if you are traveling by plane, you have already no privacy left anyway.
- djbebs 4y ago
  It doesn’t reduce the time to enter the country anymore than blocking your front door unless you pay a toll reduces your time to exit the building.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  In Europe the automated face scan is optional. You can also choose to go to a real customs agent. And the fact that privacy is currently a gone thing in air travel doesn't mean we should keep adding tech that cements the status quo, we could also move back to more privacy-conscious options of course. It's badly needed IMO.
- reisse 4y ago
  Could you please clarify why automatic face scan is considered as a privacy intrusion compared to face check by border control officer?
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Indefinite archival of your face every time you cross? It's ripe for abuse for data mining to claim (via AI, expect witness, whatever) at the exact time of crossing your face exhibited behavior which was consistent with criminals, such as nervousness/anxiety. Border patrol officer can't provide an exact recollection of your face from 10 years ago, so (without camera) if you look nervous at the border this one time it's going to be difficult to look backwards and retroactively determine you looked "nervous" or intoxicated or whatever the other times too. A photograph of your face at the pharmacy or post office taken for your passport is pretty much useless as that sort of evidence as it doesn't show your demeanor at the border.
    - nrb 4y ago
      Isn’t the issue here the conclusions drawn from this supposed evidence? Seems like the kind of thing they wouldn’t bother taking to court if the best they can muster is AI or “expert witness” as they’ll be laughed out of it.
      - notch656a 4y ago
        DHS, who houses TSA, got a federal search warrant in the middle of the night to forcibly have me "internally examined" at a hospital, during which I was confined/detained for 16 hours cuffed and shackled and strip searched, made to perform bodily functions in front of officers etc. After a dog supposedly "alerted" (but actually did not, and the agent even lamented to me that the dog did not). They may not get a conviction but a warrant or arrest will turn your life upside down for at least a few days. And they can get that based on basically nothing (I read the affadavit of my warrant and the claim was 3rd degree anonymous hearsay that didn't list the officer or the dogs name). I am still in debt to this day as debt collectors are chasing me after DHS billed me for their search made on the kind of shoddy "evidence" they obtain from any electronic and other device they have. Every tool they obtain just makes it worse.
        bodhi_mind 4y ago
        Are you saying the federal government billed you for the cost of their investigating you?
        notch656a 4y ago
        Yes. My story is very similar to this Ashley Cervantes who was also taken to Holy Cross Hospital and billed for a search [0, 1], except in my case they got a warrant which was signed by the judge AFTER (MOST OF) THE SEARCH. Like Ashley, nothing was found and I was billed afterwards. Ashley's case was even more shocking as she was forcibly and intimately penetrated by the doctor "in search of contraband" at the direction of DHS. In my case DHS promised me they would bill it in their name, but they either lied or used the billing as a retaliatory tactic when I convinced (some) of the doctors to discharge me as the doctors had no medical basis on which to search me without consent. The bill itself was written by the private medical entities performing the search at direction of DHS. [0] https://tucson.com/news/local/border/woman-sues-customs-over-body-cavity-search-which-hospital-billed-her-for/article_b11cacb8-326c-11e6-b85d-7becd2e71d17.html https://tucson.com/news/local/border/woman-sues-customs-over... [1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985537/gov.uscourts.azd.985537.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985...
hunglee2 4y ago
so long as the data is captured by US companies and accessible only the US government, we should be cool with this
- skelpmargyar 4y ago
  Why?
  - WFHRenaissance 4y ago
    They're being ironic.
throwawayacc3 4y ago
I don't have evidence to support this, but I have a feeling the TSA and/or other government agencies like the CIA have been face scanning for years. Now they're just announcing the program to normalize it.
- spicymaki 4y ago
  Yeah I figured they were scanning faces already.
- lilsoso 4y ago
  Airports already deploy facial recognition. The Global Entry program scans your face upon arrival. And sometimes flights scan your face as a boarding pass for entry.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Global Entry is reasonable: 1. Border crossing rules 2. Photo ID with an ID indexed to a background checked record as one of the rules 3. YOU are the one crossing the border, already declared and known, so there is no new information for authorities By contrast, driving, taking a bus or train, or flying A to B domestically, an ID check feels like incremental "papers please".
    - sithadmin 4y ago
      CBP already has facial recognition and gait recognition running in general public spaces at quite a few major US international air traffic hubs. My spouse (who works in the export compliance space) was given a capabilities demo one day while meeting with CBP officials at our local international airport, which included tracking individuals of interest from first appearance on airport cameras to their departure down the jetway.
      - toomuchtodo 4y ago
        A friend worked on this project at a major Midwest airport. These capabilities have been available since mid to late 00s.
josephcsible 4y ago
How is this any more of an invasion of privacy than what they did before? They already have your picture from when you got your ID in the first place, and they already have a record that you're flying that day from your boarding pass.
- prottog 4y ago
  Scale matters for things like this. When it comes to things that potentially expose people to criminal liability or other government penalties, automating anything is a gateway to abuse, present or future.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  These comments always shock me. The way people will just let their rights slip through their fingers with glee so they can get an intellectual "gotcha". It's very hard for me to imagine not being outraged that the government is tracking you even more because you want to seem smarter than randos on the Internet.
  - sithadmin 4y ago
    What rights are 'slipping through' fingers here? While digitization of surveillance might make folks uncomfortable, the rights in question are mostly settled, and have been for a while. The US long operated on court precedent that one doesn't have a general expectation of privacy for one's image in public places, and next to zero expectation of privacy in airports.
    - helpfulclippy 4y ago
      The right you are losing is privacy, and the fact that there's been a trend of decisions towards further loss does not mean future losses are inevitable, or that prior losses must be taken as permanent. The existence of court precedent does not mean that policymaking over a right is settled, or anything close to settled. Roe v. Wade was a recent dramatic example of this. Even within the framework of "reasonable expectation of privacy," the test outlined in Katz v. US leaves no room for the concept that an expectation will ever truly be "settled." To show a reasonable expectation of privacy, an one must demonstrate an individual, subjective expectation of privacy, and also that this expectation is something society would find reasonable. So gee, does society find it reasonable to expect that you can walk through an airport without having your photo taken and analyzed by the government, and possibly stored in a database where it can be abused by internal or external actors? Viewed in the context of past behavior, perhaps not. Viewed in the context of a government that is suspicious of big tech surveillance even as it collects ever-more data on its citizens, and jurisdictions like the EU passing ever-tighter regulations like GDPR to safeguard privacy, then maybe society's expectations of privacy have shifted compared to where they were in the 2000s/2010s.
_8j50 4y ago
Airport customs already scan your face at a few international airports. How is this different?
- __derek__ 4y ago
  This isn't international travel.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    I know but why is it ok for international travel but not ok for domestic?
    - __derek__ 4y ago
      I don't really understand the question: there are legal differences between (a) entry into the US and (b) travel within the US. The federal government has asserted that there are carve-outs to the Fourth Amendment for the former (the "100 mile" zone), but that's definitely not the case for the latter.
      - _8j50 4y ago
        As a citizen, it makes little difference. If I want my rights respected I better not leave the country? That makes no sense. I see no reason why CBPs immigration duties can be used to bypass 4th amendment but TSA's duty to regulate interstate commerce as outlined in the constitution can't use the same logic by saying regulation of commerce to acheive safety of travellers and those in the ground supersedes the 4th amendment because unlike international travel where you can only go to canada and mexico over land, interstate travel is possible to most states without flying.
1B05H1N 4y ago
We give a lot to feel safe / for security theatre, not surprised at all.
__derek__ 4y ago
> But does it mean you’ll get moved to a slow line, get an extra pat down, or a mark on your record? “You should have no derogatory experience based on you exercising your right,” said Lim. If you suspect that has happened, the TSA says you should ask to speak to a manager. I have to assume that this is a joke. If you speak to a manager, you'll be subjected to more bureaucratic abuse and risk missing your flight, just to have your concerns dismissed because there is no enforcement mechanism.
- musicale 4y ago
  TSA already punishes travelers who try to opt out of body scanning. In addition to subjecting them to intrusive patdowns, often in public (for those who don't want to risk a special "private screening") they will typically suspend scanning temporarily and make the opt-out people wait as they let others go ahead through a simple metal detector. This may be an easy way for bad actors to help their accomplices avoid body scans.

38 points by mysterypie 4y ago

Something similar is implemented in many German airports for EU citizens and it greatly reduces the time to enter the country. I know, this is some kind of privacy intrusion but if you are traveling by plane, you have already no privacy left anyway.

djbebs 4y ago
It doesn’t reduce the time to enter the country anymore than blocking your front door unless you pay a toll reduces your time to exit the building.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
In Europe the automated face scan is optional. You can also choose to go to a real customs agent. And the fact that privacy is currently a gone thing in air travel doesn't mean we should keep adding tech that cements the status quo, we could also move back to more privacy-conscious options of course. It's badly needed IMO.
reisse 4y ago
Could you please clarify why automatic face scan is considered as a privacy intrusion compared to face check by border control officer?
- notch656a 4y ago
  Indefinite archival of your face every time you cross? It's ripe for abuse for data mining to claim (via AI, expect witness, whatever) at the exact time of crossing your face exhibited behavior which was consistent with criminals, such as nervousness/anxiety. Border patrol officer can't provide an exact recollection of your face from 10 years ago, so (without camera) if you look nervous at the border this one time it's going to be difficult to look backwards and retroactively determine you looked "nervous" or intoxicated or whatever the other times too. A photograph of your face at the pharmacy or post office taken for your passport is pretty much useless as that sort of evidence as it doesn't show your demeanor at the border.
  - nrb 4y ago
    Isn’t the issue here the conclusions drawn from this supposed evidence? Seems like the kind of thing they wouldn’t bother taking to court if the best they can muster is AI or “expert witness” as they’ll be laughed out of it.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      DHS, who houses TSA, got a federal search warrant in the middle of the night to forcibly have me "internally examined" at a hospital, during which I was confined/detained for 16 hours cuffed and shackled and strip searched, made to perform bodily functions in front of officers etc. After a dog supposedly "alerted" (but actually did not, and the agent even lamented to me that the dog did not). They may not get a conviction but a warrant or arrest will turn your life upside down for at least a few days. And they can get that based on basically nothing (I read the affadavit of my warrant and the claim was 3rd degree anonymous hearsay that didn't list the officer or the dogs name). I am still in debt to this day as debt collectors are chasing me after DHS billed me for their search made on the kind of shoddy "evidence" they obtain from any electronic and other device they have. Every tool they obtain just makes it worse.
      - bodhi_mind 4y ago
        Are you saying the federal government billed you for the cost of their investigating you?
        notch656a 4y ago
        Yes. My story is very similar to this Ashley Cervantes who was also taken to Holy Cross Hospital and billed for a search [0, 1], except in my case they got a warrant which was signed by the judge AFTER (MOST OF) THE SEARCH. Like Ashley, nothing was found and I was billed afterwards. Ashley's case was even more shocking as she was forcibly and intimately penetrated by the doctor "in search of contraband" at the direction of DHS. In my case DHS promised me they would bill it in their name, but they either lied or used the billing as a retaliatory tactic when I convinced (some) of the doctors to discharge me as the doctors had no medical basis on which to search me without consent. The bill itself was written by the private medical entities performing the search at direction of DHS. [0] https://tucson.com/news/local/border/woman-sues-customs-over-body-cavity-search-which-hospital-billed-her-for/article_b11cacb8-326c-11e6-b85d-7becd2e71d17.html https://tucson.com/news/local/border/woman-sues-customs-over... [1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985537/gov.uscourts.azd.985537.1.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.985...

hunglee2 4y ago

so long as the data is captured by US companies and accessible only the US government, we should be cool with this

skelpmargyar 4y ago
Why?
- WFHRenaissance 4y ago
  They're being ironic.

throwawayacc3 4y ago

I don't have evidence to support this, but I have a feeling the TSA and/or other government agencies like the CIA have been face scanning for years. Now they're just announcing the program to normalize it.

spicymaki 4y ago
Yeah I figured they were scanning faces already.
lilsoso 4y ago
Airports already deploy facial recognition. The Global Entry program scans your face upon arrival. And sometimes flights scan your face as a boarding pass for entry.
- Terretta 4y ago
  Global Entry is reasonable: 1. Border crossing rules 2. Photo ID with an ID indexed to a background checked record as one of the rules 3. YOU are the one crossing the border, already declared and known, so there is no new information for authorities By contrast, driving, taking a bus or train, or flying A to B domestically, an ID check feels like incremental "papers please".
  - sithadmin 4y ago
    CBP already has facial recognition and gait recognition running in general public spaces at quite a few major US international air traffic hubs. My spouse (who works in the export compliance space) was given a capabilities demo one day while meeting with CBP officials at our local international airport, which included tracking individuals of interest from first appearance on airport cameras to their departure down the jetway.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      A friend worked on this project at a major Midwest airport. These capabilities have been available since mid to late 00s.

josephcsible 4y ago

How is this any more of an invasion of privacy than what they did before? They already have your picture from when you got your ID in the first place, and they already have a record that you're flying that day from your boarding pass.

prottog 4y ago
Scale matters for things like this. When it comes to things that potentially expose people to criminal liability or other government penalties, automating anything is a gateway to abuse, present or future.
SQueeeeeL 4y ago
These comments always shock me. The way people will just let their rights slip through their fingers with glee so they can get an intellectual "gotcha". It's very hard for me to imagine not being outraged that the government is tracking you even more because you want to seem smarter than randos on the Internet.
- sithadmin 4y ago
  What rights are 'slipping through' fingers here? While digitization of surveillance might make folks uncomfortable, the rights in question are mostly settled, and have been for a while. The US long operated on court precedent that one doesn't have a general expectation of privacy for one's image in public places, and next to zero expectation of privacy in airports.
  - helpfulclippy 4y ago
    The right you are losing is privacy, and the fact that there's been a trend of decisions towards further loss does not mean future losses are inevitable, or that prior losses must be taken as permanent. The existence of court precedent does not mean that policymaking over a right is settled, or anything close to settled. Roe v. Wade was a recent dramatic example of this. Even within the framework of "reasonable expectation of privacy," the test outlined in Katz v. US leaves no room for the concept that an expectation will ever truly be "settled." To show a reasonable expectation of privacy, an one must demonstrate an individual, subjective expectation of privacy, and also that this expectation is something society would find reasonable. So gee, does society find it reasonable to expect that you can walk through an airport without having your photo taken and analyzed by the government, and possibly stored in a database where it can be abused by internal or external actors? Viewed in the context of past behavior, perhaps not. Viewed in the context of a government that is suspicious of big tech surveillance even as it collects ever-more data on its citizens, and jurisdictions like the EU passing ever-tighter regulations like GDPR to safeguard privacy, then maybe society's expectations of privacy have shifted compared to where they were in the 2000s/2010s.

_8j50 4y ago

Airport customs already scan your face at a few international airports. How is this different?

__derek__ 4y ago
This isn't international travel.
- _8j50 4y ago
  I know but why is it ok for international travel but not ok for domestic?
  - __derek__ 4y ago
    I don't really understand the question: there are legal differences between (a) entry into the US and (b) travel within the US. The federal government has asserted that there are carve-outs to the Fourth Amendment for the former (the "100 mile" zone), but that's definitely not the case for the latter.
    - _8j50 4y ago
      As a citizen, it makes little difference. If I want my rights respected I better not leave the country? That makes no sense. I see no reason why CBPs immigration duties can be used to bypass 4th amendment but TSA's duty to regulate interstate commerce as outlined in the constitution can't use the same logic by saying regulation of commerce to acheive safety of travellers and those in the ground supersedes the 4th amendment because unlike international travel where you can only go to canada and mexico over land, interstate travel is possible to most states without flying.

1B05H1N 4y ago

We give a lot to feel safe / for security theatre, not surprised at all.

__derek__ 4y ago

> But does it mean you’ll get moved to a slow line, get an extra pat down, or a mark on your record? “You should have no derogatory experience based on you exercising your right,” said Lim. If you suspect that has happened, the TSA says you should ask to speak to a manager. I have to assume that this is a joke. If you speak to a manager, you'll be subjected to more bureaucratic abuse and risk missing your flight, just to have your concerns dismissed because there is no enforcement mechanism.

musicale 4y ago
TSA already punishes travelers who try to opt out of body scanning. In addition to subjecting them to intrusive patdowns, often in public (for those who don't want to risk a special "private screening") they will typically suspend scanning temporarily and make the opt-out people wait as they let others go ahead through a simple metal detector. This may be an easy way for bad actors to help their accomplices avoid body scans.