TSA Now Wants To Scan Your Face At Airports
As if being brutally beaten, spit on, slapped, maimed, robbed, or raped by fellow passengers at airports wasn’t bad enough, now you risk having your identity stolen by the government. Count me out. I’d rather ride a tricycle cross country before ever stepping foot in one of these death traps again. Via MSN:
The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly testing controversial facial recognition technology for passenger screening at 16 major domestic airports — from Washington to Los Angeles — and hopes to expand it across the United States as soon as next year. Kiosks with cameras are doing a job that used to be completed by humans: checking the photos on travelers’ IDs to make sure they’re not impostors.
The TSA says facial recognition, which has been banned by cities such as San Francisco, helps improve security and possibly also efficiency. But it’s also bringing an unproven tech, with civil rights ramifications we still just don’t understand, to one of the most stressful parts of travel.
[…]
Just remember: Any time data gets collected somewhere, it could also be stolen — and you only get one face. The TSA says all its databases are encrypted to reduce hacking risk. But in 2019, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed that photos of travelers were taken in a data breach, accessed through the network of one of its subcontractors.
[MSN]
More at the link on what your rights are at airports. (In short, you absolutely do not have to do the face scan.)
