{"id":2551,"date":"2019-08-27T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T19:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-aclu-wp.pantheonsite.io\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security\/"},"modified":"2023-02-27T17:15:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T22:15:30","slug":"tsa-testing-face-recognition-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security","title":{"rendered":"TSA Testing Face Recognition at Security Entrances, Opening Door to Massive Expansion of the Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-2551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":{"header_layout":"standard","color_scheme":false,"header_image":2552,"mobile_header_image":null,"description":"","authors":[1382],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"

The Transportation Security Administration is planning to test a face recognition system that could be used on all domestic U.S. fliers, according to a document<\/a> the agency released today. That would represent a significant expansion of face recognition in daily life.<\/p>\n

In the test, which will occur at McCarran airport in Las Vegas, passengers entering the TSA security area will be photographed and a face recognition algorithm applied in an attempt to tell whether they match the photograph on their IDs. The system adds face recognition to a technology that the TSA has been working on for years<\/a> called Credential Authentication Technology, which scans a passenger\u2019s driver\u2019s license or other ID document and attempts to automatically determine whether it is authentic.<\/p>\n

If the TSA decides that the system works well, we can assume the agency will use it to replace human document checkers throughout the domestic aviation system. This program is part of the TSA\u2019s sweeping vision<\/a> to deploy face surveillance at the nation\u2019s airports, and comes on the heels of a similar deployment by CBP at the gates of departing international flights. If widely deployed, the TSA's program would (as we said<\/a> of the CBP program) socialize people to accept face recognition and normalize the technology, inevitably be subject to mission creep, and expose people to the judgments of unreliable and biased algorithms.<\/p>\n

For purposes of this test, the TSA says it will only run the system on passengers who volunteer to participate. \u201cThe passenger\u2019s facial image, along with certain biographic information from the passenger\u2019s identity document, will be collected by TSA and retained for subsequent qualitative and quantitative analysis\u201d by DHS technical experts. Names and identification numbers will be obfuscated before the data is transferred for analysis, the agency says, and the data will be deleted within 180 days.<\/p>\n

But the real question is what data will be collected and how will it be handled if this technology moves beyond tests? Will passengers be able to opt out? Will the agency want to collect and store passengers\u2019 photographs to improve the training of their face recognition algorithms? Will passengers\u2019 photos be run against photographic watch lists, exposing every passenger to the risk of being misidentified as a serious terrorist or other criminal every time they fly?<\/p>\n

And what are the implications of introducing a technology for the automated checking of IDs? Like many airport security measures, such technology may very well expand beyond the airport and into daily life. When ID checks can be done by machines that are much cheaper and easier to deploy than human guards, will we find ourselves being subject to ever-more-frequent checks? When ID checks become cheap and easily scalable they will inevitably be over-used, as we have seen happen with other surveillance technologies.<\/p>\n

Finally, as I have explained in depth before<\/a>, one of the biggest problems with this use of face recognition is that it represents an ever-growing investment by the TSA in identity-based security \u2014 security based on knowing more and more information about people and trying to use that information to assess their \u201crisk to aviation.\u201d The TSA should instead be focused on making sure that nobody \u2014 no matter who they are \u2014 can bring guns or explosives onto aircraft. Face recognition is an investment that is bad for security and that is likely to have bad side effects on our society to boot.<\/p>\n"}}],"featured_cases_section":{"enable_featured_cases":false,"title":"Featured Cases","description":"","featured_cases":null},"action":148399,"issues":[46641,46330,46645,46645,46641,46641],"related_content_cases":null,"related_content_documents":null,"related_content_publications":null,"related_affiliates":null,"content_layout":"","theme":"light","drupal_nid":"92330"},"yoast_head":"\nTSA Testing Face Recognition at Security Entrances, Opening Door to Massive Expansion of the Technology | ACLU<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TSA Testing Face Recognition at Security Entrances, Opening Door to Massive Expansion of the Technology | ACLU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Civil Liberties Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-27T19:47:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-27T22:15:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security\",\"name\":\"TSA Testing Face Recognition at Security Entrances, Opening Door to Massive Expansion of the Technology | ACLU\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-27T19:47:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-02-27T22:15:30+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/privacy-technology\/tsa-testing-face-recognition-security\"]}],\"author\":{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#\/schema\/person\/jay-stanley\",\"name\":\"Jay Stanley\",\"jobTitle\":\"Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/bio\/jay-stanley\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#\/schema\/person\/photo\/jay-stanley\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jay_stanley-scaled-1000x1000-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2020\/09\/jay_stanley-scaled-1000x1000-1.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Jay Stanley\"}}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/\",\"name\":\"American Civil Liberties Union\",\"description\":\"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. 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