Lawmakers and civil liberties advocates might be pressing law enforcement agencies to scale back their use of facial recognition software, but international travelers should only expect to see more of the tech in the years ahead.
It’s been almost two years since Customs and Border Protection began deploying facial recognition systems at U.S. airports, and despite the recent backlash against the software, the agency’s efforts show no signs of slowing down. But if you ask Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner John Wagner, the agency’s use of facial recognition falls far short of the dystopian panopticon feared by many of the tech’s critics.
“This is not a surveillance program,” Wagner, who heads CBP’s biometric entry and exit initiative, said in a conversation with Nextgov. “We are not just hanging a camera in an airport and randomly identifying people … as they're walking through.”
Under Wagner’s program, CBP agents use facial recognition to compare real-time images of international travelers to the photos on their passports or visas. For arrivals, people have their faces scanned while officers review their travel documents, and for departures, the tech captures images right at the boarding gate.
Today, the tech is deployed in some capacity at 16 airports across the U.S, and by 2021, CBP expects to scale up the program to cover more than 97 percent of the people flying outside the country. Ultimately, officials anticipate biometrics could render physical boarding passes obsolete.
more here:
https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/05/cbps-airport-facial-recognition-not-surveillance-program/157373/