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Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

nextgov.com

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Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#11

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

azernik wrote: post #4

Note - this is only for international flights, where CBP takes your photo anyway. Data retention period is 14 days for pilot testing, 12 hours for some unspecified "short term", and zero after that.

Taking your photo and having gate agents inspect your ID and appearance is an entirely, categorically different thing than having a facial recognition system that can be dynamically fine tuned on small numbers of photos to automatically detect your face in digital sources.

I could agree there are legitimate purposes to collect photo identification. I can’t see any useful reason that comes anywhere close to outweighing the risks for feeding photos into a recognition system like this.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#12

Post by diebeforei485 »

As long as false flags get sent to a human gate agent standing right there who can make manual approvals, I fail to see why anyone traveling internationally would object to this. I sure as heck want everyone else on the plane with me to be compared against their photograph.

From a legal standpoint, domestic travel is different (and there should be open debate in Congress before they make a decision there). But I fully support facial recognition for international travel and other immigration benefits.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#13

Post by peteretep »

Johnny555 wrote: post #9

The scan takes fractions of a second and has shown to be 99 percent accurate during testing Presumably it's 99% effective at matching random faces to the photos -- if a terrorist group has a pool of 1000 stolen passports, with a system that's only 99% effective at maching a random photo, I think they could do much better at finding a person (perhaps with some surgical alterations) that fits in that 1%. The process el…

> if a terrorist group has a pool of 1000 stolen passports, with a system that's only 99% effective at maching a random photo, I think they could do much better at finding a person (perhaps with some surgical alterations) that fits in that 1%

Is this worse than the current security measures in place while boarding?

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#14

Post by wahern »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #12

As long as false flags get sent to a human gate agent standing right there who can make manual approvals, I fail to see why anyone traveling internationally would object to this. I sure as heck want everyone else on the plane with me to be compared against their photograph. From a legal standpoint, domestic travel is different (and there should be open debate in Congress before they make a decision there). But I full…

  I sure as heck want everyone else on the plane with me to be compared against their photograph.
Why? I'm sure there's nefarious activity that could be prevented, I'm just struggling to identify activities that would make be feel (let alone actually be) unsafe on an airplane as a practical matter, and without doning a screen writer's hat.

I'm assuming weapons are already adequately checked. And if not I'm not sure how facial recognition would appreciably help in this regard. Sure, maybe 12 bad guys enter the system though 12 airports with lax security, then all board the same flight at a major hub in a manner that circumvents analytics that searches for suspected bad guys flying together. But that already makes some dubious assumptions, such as the degree of efficacy in the system looking for suspected bad guys traveling together.

For most of air travel hijackings and bombings were incredibly common. We all but solved that by the 1980s by physically screening for weapons and suspect material, not by pretending we could predict people's behavior.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#15

Post by paxy »

Johnny555 wrote: post #9

The scan takes fractions of a second and has shown to be 99 percent accurate during testing Presumably it's 99% effective at matching random faces to the photos -- if a terrorist group has a pool of 1000 stolen passports, with a system that's only 99% effective at maching a random photo, I think they could do much better at finding a person (perhaps with some surgical alterations) that fits in that 1%. The process el…

Identity checks are handled by TSA, not airline employees, so this scan has nothing to do with security. They check your boarding pass to make sure you have paid for the flight you are getting on.

Also "99% accuracy" can mean it has a 1% false-negative rate rather than false-positive, in which case they will just defer to scanning the boarding pass like normal.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#17

Post by refurb »

Once facial recognition becomes commonplace, the impact will be huge.

“What were your whereabouts on the night of June 5th?”

“I was at home all night.”

“You’re lying. We have confirmation your face was recognized at the gas station, grocery store and bank between the hours of 7 and 9pm.”

That sends a shiver down my spine.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#18

Post by Johnny555 »

peteretep wrote: post #13
Johnny555 wrote: post #9

The scan takes fractions of a second and has shown to be 99 percent accurate during testing Presumably it's 99% effective at matching random faces to the photos -- if a terrorist group has a pool of 1000 stolen passports, with a system that's only 99% effective at maching a random photo, I think they could do much better at finding a person (perhaps with some surgical alterations) that fits in that 1%. The process el…

> if a terrorist group has a pool of 1000 stolen passports, with a system that's only 99% effective at maching a random photo, I think they could do much better at finding a person (perhaps with some surgical alterations) that fits in that 1% Is this worse than the current security measures in place while boarding?

Probably not since agents don't check ID at all, but if I'm going to give up my privacy by having my passport photo shared with airports without my knowledge or consent, I'd like to think that I'm getting something out of the deal.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#19

Post by paxy »

ReGenGen wrote: post #16

The speed of boarding pass checks is rarely the limiting factor for loading a plane. Perhaps the A380 is different? Are they comparing a single human boarding pass checker vs multiple facial scanner lanes?

I can see the number of scanning lanes (which is usually 1) being a bottleneck on large aircrafts with lots of doors, like the A380 example they have given.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#20

Post by wahern »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #8

> “The process eliminates the need for an airline employee to manually check every boarding pass and passport while boarding a plane.” But you can hold accountable an airline or customs gate agent who doesn’t have access to a library of images forming a signature of your face and who may be bound by policies or laws regarding privacy and identity that could be nearly impossible to enforce or even verify with a digita…

I mean, from a security and safety standpoint it fails. From a financial standpoint it makes perfect sense, especially if CBP is picking up the tab.

Not having to dedicate an employee to each gate that is currently boarding is a huge labor saver for airlines. From CBP's standpoint, they get to use fancy new technology while also furthering mission creep. It's win-win.

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