Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
US Customs and Border Protection said Thursday it will drop its plans to require that US citizens go through a biometric face scan when entering or exiting the country. Currently, citizens have the right to opt out of the scans, but a proposed rule indicated the agency was planning to make the program mandatory for all travelers.
The proposed rule was first published in spring 2018 in the Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, a compendium the Executive Office of the President publishes every three months. A rule-making process that allows for public comment typically follows before a proposal can become a new regulation. The CBP's proposal was republished this fall, leading TechCrunch to ask the agency if it was still pursuing the rule.
"There are no current plans to require US citizens to provide photographs upon entry and exit from the United States," the agency said in a statement. "CBP intends to have the planned regulatory action regarding US citizens removed from the unified agenda next time it is published."
Related: Homeland Security Wants Airport Face Scans for US Citizens
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Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
Homeland Security wants airport face scans for US citizens
Homeland Security is joining the ranks of government agencies pushing for wider use of facial recognition for US travelers. The department has proposed that US citizens, not just visa holders and visitors, should go through a mandatory facial recognition check when they enter or leave the country. This would ostensibly help officials catch terrorists using stolen travel documents to move about. The existing rules specifically exempt citizens and permanent residents from face scans.
It won't surprise you to hear that civil rights advocates object to the potential expansion. ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley said in a statement that the government was "reneging" on a longstanding promise to spare citizens from this "intrusive surveillance technology." He also contended that this was an unfair burden on people using their "constitutional right to travel," and pointed to abuses of power, data breaches and potential bias as strong reasons to avoid expanding use of the technology.
Via: TechCrunch
This Conversation Between A Passenger And An Airline Should Absolutely Terrify You:
A conversation between a passenger and an airline has gone viral, largely because people find it intensely creepy.
MacKenzie Fegan went to the airport last week. As with normal flights, she was expecting at some point to present her boarding card in order to get on her plane. However, she found all she had to do was look at a camera, and at no point was asked for her pass.
As convenient as that sounds, she had questions, which she put to the airline, JetBlue, in a now-viral thread.
Fegan had several pressing follow-up questions, such as "how" and "who exactly has my face on record?".
"Presumably these facial recognition scanners are matching my image to something in order to verify my identity," she wrote. "How does JetBlue know what I look like?"
AWS Facial Recognition Platform Misidentified Over 100 Politicians As Criminals:
Comparitech's Paul Bischoff found that Amazon's facial recognition platform misidentified an alarming number of people, and was racially biased.
Facial recognition technology is still misidentifying people at an alarming rate – even as it's being used by police departments to make arrests. In fact, Paul Bischoff, consumer privacy expert with Comparitech, found that Amazon's face recognition platform incorrectly misidentified more than 100 photos of US and UK lawmakers as criminals.
Rekognition, Amazon's cloud-based facial recognition platform that was first launched in 2016, has been sold and used by a number of United States government agencies, including ICE and Orlando, Florida police, as well as private entities. In comparing photos of a total of 1,959 US and UK lawmakers to subjects in an arrest database, Bischoff found that Rekognition misidentified at average of 32 members of Congress. That's four more than a similar experiment conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) – two years ago. Bischoff also found that the platform was racially biased, misidentifying non-white people at a higher rate than white people.
These findings have disturbing real-life implications. Last week, the ACLU shed light on Detroit citizen Robert Julian-Borchak Williams, who was arrested after a facial recognition system falsely matched his photo with security footage of a shoplifter.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday December 07 2019, @09:07AM (2 children)
That's funny. When I flew a couple of years ago, I didn't have a choice to opt out of getting my photo taken. And I'm a citizen.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Saturday December 07 2019, @09:41AM (1 child)
You probably encountered the camera program in "phase 1" of the project. That phase where it's already in place but the public at large doesn't know it exists yet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Common Joe on Saturday December 07 2019, @02:51PM
No, actually, the TSA agent said to go to the booth and follow the instructions. I followed the instructions and I was forced to have my picture taken. (This was so that I could come into the USA.) I suppose I could have asked if there was an alternative, but I had been awake for about 24 hours by that point and I was pretty tired and just wanted to get to my destination.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday December 07 2019, @09:53AM
Meanwhile, you can't throw a rock without hitting some security camera recording everything including your ugly face. Some of these are already being fed in to facial, and other object, recognition systems and aggregation databases. In just a few more years facial recognition will be completely standard everywhere.
In other words, they don't need an official requirement because it is already being done.
Remember, youcantbetoosafethinkofthechildrenpollywannacracker.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:30PM (2 children)
Reading tfa, for a minute there I thought that maybe there was a chance that we would start to undo all the horrible changes that have come from 9-11 and the idiotic response of the "war on terror". We (USA) have really let the terrorists win, by amplifying some minimal amount of danger into widespread & paralyzing security theater.
I still speak out about this, but I don't have a big audience. Usually it takes the form of a lament when talking to people that I meet, one-on-one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:59PM (1 child)
Stop being so anti-semetic, the measures the US took in the wake of 9/11 were essential
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 09 2019, @05:05PM
Essential to creating a police state.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @07:43PM
Facial recognition is deeply flawed because it performs poorly at determining the identity of dark-skinned individuals. The worst terror attack in the history of the world was committed on September 11, 2001. The perpetrators would have been difficulty for facial recognition systems to detect.
Niggers, kikes, towelheads, wetbacks, dune coons, chinks, and all other darkies hate America and are actively trying to destroy the civilized society we have built. I hate darkies because of their hatred of America and persistent efforts to attack us. My hate is strong and I'm damned proud of it. In fact, my hate is getting stronger and I talk to you people. However, I'm not racist, and there's nothing racist about this post. The left will undoubtedly try to label me as a racist to try to discredit me. That's because they are uncomfortable with the truth, but know they can't actually refute anything I've said. The left clearly understands the ineffectiveness of facial recognition, which is why the rabid leftists in San Francisco have banned facial recognition.
When a facial recognition system is developed that can accurately track sand niggers who are responsible for terrorism, that will be a step in the right direction. Such a system will need to be able to recognize the faces of the chink spies who are actively committing espionage against the United States. Moreover, it will need to be able to determine the identity of wetback scabs who repeatedly cross the southern border, smuggling drugs and weapons while taking the jobs of hard-working Americans. It will need to be able to detect the identity of the violent nigger criminals on the inner city streets of any large American city. And of course, it needs to be effective at recognizing the faces of the kikes, who are undermining our society with their greed.
Until facial recognition is effective at determining the identity of darkies, I cannot support its implementation. For now, it is a system that will only be effective at invading the privacy of law-abiding white people. When facial recognition is improved to accurately detect darkies, such as the sand niggers who attacked us on 9/11, the I will support its implementation and mandatory use.