It seems like this system has been designed with privacy in mind, after the pilot program, they won't store your image after the comparison. The only question is will it remain that way?
Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
71–80 of 183 posts
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#72The 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…
Self-scanning in supermarkets was supposedly all about speeding checkout as a benefit to the consumer. This is about speeding boarding - that's the marketing friendly benefit to be shouted about.
In actuality supermarket self-scanning is often slower than a traditional checkout queue. Particularly when items require staff authorisation. I expect this to be no better than traditional boarding in most cases.
The real benefit to both this, and supermarket self-scanning, is another low wage employee can be canned. This isn't a very marketing friendly message so it's no surprise that this isn't the message that publicised loudest.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#73The 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…
Self-scanning in supermarkets was supposedly all about speeding checkout as a benefit to the consumer. This is about speeding boarding - that's the marketing friendly benefit to be shouted about. In actuality supermarket self-scanning is often slower than a traditional checkout queue. Particularly when items require staff authorisation. I expect this to be no better than traditional boarding in most cases. The real b…
The other benefit of self-checkout is you can fit perhaps 8 machines in the space that you used to use for 3 lanes, so even though an individual checkout might take longer, overall you can probably get higher throughput on the self-checkout.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Note - this is only for international flights, where CBP takes your photo anyway. Not typically on outbound flights, only inbound as part of customs.
And inbound is only because they have installed kiosks that they guide everyone to. Otherwise if you go to a CBP agent they don't take your photo if you're a US passport holder. The kiosks are an end-run around tradition/rules about how CBP can treat Americans.
> they don't take your photo if you're a US passport holder
This is very much in the "you don't have to go through the body scanners" at the airport category. By default they take your photo and fingerprint, even if you're a US citizen; the specific language on CBP's website is:
"At this time, CBP does not require U.S. Citizens to have their photos captured when entering or exiting the country. U.S. Citizens who request not to participate in this biometric collection process may notify a CBP Officer or an airline or airport representative in order to seek an alternative means of verifying their identity and documents."
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#75The system then compares the photo to a gallery that includes images of that person—either their passport photo for U.S. citizens or the photo taken of foreign nationals when they entered the country.
So those of us with dual nationality, who enter the US on our US passports and leave on our foreign passports, are going to get screwed. Lovely.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crucial difference here is that phone and vehicle data is something you can control - Between disabling location history, moving to a non-apple OS, and turning off your connection, there's a range of steps you can take currently to reduce or eliminate your trackable history. Ubiquitous facial identification is not something we can manage, however, and should be considered deeply concerning. Privacy is only dead f…
> moving to a non-apple OS Sadly, by all measures Android with Google Play Services is worse for privacy than iOS. Presumably, non-Googled Android (e.g. LineageOS w/o Google Play) is better than that, but that's not the majority use case of Android.
Oops, I meant to say non-Google OS, but had a bit of a brainfart. I agree wholeheartedly that Google's Android is generally an abysmal choice with regards to privacy - significantly worse than iOS, IMO.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, for international flights the airline additionally checks your passport at the gate (at least in the US).
Correct. And they're essentially acting as outward immigration, since the airline's passport records are used to mark the unwanted/foreigners (like me) as departed. But the system is quite flaky, my arrival/departure record is missing a few departures - and I think that's where CBP want to improve things, possibly so they can more legitimately claim that someone overstayed when their records are incomplete. (And I gu…
The airline checks passports on the way out as they are required to bring you back if you are denied entry at the destination. They try hard not to pay that cost, so they want to make sure you have a passport, all required visas, haven't been barred from the destination, and so on.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#78On a full flight there's really no need to check at all. If too many people board you'll catch it when the spurious passenger tries to take a paid passenger's seat. And if identity actually mattered (hint: it doesn't), well it's already been "screened" via the purchase and TSA checkpoint tests. Planes flew for decades without any matching of passengers to tickets, and tickets were frequently resold (especially unused…
> On a full flight there's really no need to check at all. If too many people board you'll catch it when the spurious passenger tries to take a paid passenger's seat.
Well, but that's an assumption and an edge case.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#79The 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…
Self-scanning in supermarkets was supposedly all about speeding checkout as a benefit to the consumer. This is about speeding boarding - that's the marketing friendly benefit to be shouted about. In actuality supermarket self-scanning is often slower than a traditional checkout queue. Particularly when items require staff authorisation. I expect this to be no better than traditional boarding in most cases. The real b…
Per item? Sure. For small numbers of items, counting time spent waiting? Heck no, I regularly get through self-checkout much faster than people who get into a regular queue, in no small part because there's often a few times more self-checkout scanners than there are open checkouts.
When you have a full cart or two, the speedier scanning at a traditional checkout pays off. But usually both are available, not just self checkout, so you're free to choose when that isn't the case.
Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding
#80The 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…
Self-scanning in supermarkets was supposedly all about speeding checkout as a benefit to the consumer. This is about speeding boarding - that's the marketing friendly benefit to be shouted about. In actuality supermarket self-scanning is often slower than a traditional checkout queue. Particularly when items require staff authorisation. I expect this to be no better than traditional boarding in most cases. The real b…
The actual scanning might be slower, but the queues are much shorter for self-scanning at the stores where I by groceries.
Also, where I live we have portable scanners. You pick up a scanner when you enter the store, you scan all your groceries and put them directly in the bag (or under the stroller) and when you reach the exit you leave the scanner and pay at a terminal and off you go.