> They're just banning the automation of it. The automated facial recognition service they currently offer also isn't mandatory. Anyone that uses it is doing so

> They're just banning the automation of it. The automated facial recognition service they currently offer also isn't mandatory. Anyone that uses it is doing so voluntarily. For someone concerned about mandatory face scanning, there is a good argument against permitting the TSA to do voluntary face scanning, which is that the voluntary often becomes the mandatory. As an analogy, consider doing business with the government. Many government agencies will only do business with you if you have a phone number (increasingly an app) and pay with credit or debit card, all practices that started out as voluntary conveniences but morphed into requirements. You could describe this process in a variety of ways, depending on how much agency and malevolence you want to ascribe to the decision makers: "ratchet effect", "slippery slope", "boiling the frog", etc. Regardless of name, the process tends to look like this: first give people the option to do B instead of A. Then give people an incentive to do B. Then, once most people are doing B, deprioritize A (which makes it inconvenient). Finally, remove option A when there are only a few people left to complain. The TSA is already pushing the envelope with PreCheck and adding more categories to the No Fly List. It works very well. Consider your comment: "but for better or worse, the TSA inherently has to use facial recognition because they're required right now to check your ID" (emphasis mine). Your logic isn't wrong, but it's starting from the premise of how to better serve what is being done right now rather than what should be done. Consider that the US only started requring airlines to check IDs a few years before 9/11, and personal identification is only indirectly related to the security of an airplane (why there's all those people checking your shoes despite knowing your name and face). The effect of airport IDing is mainly as a tool for law enforcement interdiction and to bolster airline profits by preventing ticket switching. Similarly, after the TSA has built a national database of face models, there is no reason this data has to be used primarily for airline security.