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JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

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Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#81

Post by Cyph0n »

crazygringo wrote: post #63
ssss11 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's also always been pretty normal to have your photo taken by countries when passing through passport control. No not always, only recently. > I don't really see what the problem would be here? You’re kidding right? There’s multiple privacy problems. Sounds like you either benefit from mass surveillance or have been conditioned to it.

> You’re kidding right? There’s multiple privacy problems. No, not kidding. There's a legitimate government interest in identifying people entering and leaving a country. This isn't Facebook, or even cameras on street corners -- this is a government responsible for enforcing legitimate immigration policies at a legitimate location (the border) for a wide variety of reasons (safety, economic, etc.), which absolutely r…

Isn’t a passport good enough? Why do I need to help train their ML model if a manual check works?

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#82

Post by fcarraldo »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #44
apcragg wrote: post #21

Privacy concerns aside, I can't wait to read the "Facial Recognition let me on the wrong flight when I got in the wrong line by accident" articles that are going to come out of this. Unless these systems have some fantastic (1e-6) P_{false alarm} rate or better, people are going to be mistaken for other people and let on the wrong flight sooner or later.

You need at least 2 people for this mixup to happen...

You don’t, really. Whoever is checked in first gets the seat. The second person will be questioned, and hopefully it will be cleared up. With the number of flights in and out of the US each day, it’s bound to happen unless the false positive rate is extremely low, which would only be possible through an extremely invasive cataloguing of photographs beyond those taken for DMV and Passport photos.

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#83

Post by inetknght »

Waterluvian wrote: post #35
ssss11 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's also always been pretty normal to have your photo taken by countries when passing through passport control. No not always, only recently. > I don't really see what the problem would be here? You’re kidding right? There’s multiple privacy problems. Sounds like you either benefit from mass surveillance or have been conditioned to it.

In my opinion it's a really bad idea to foster an attitude of, "if you're not with us then you're against us." Some people don't mind these kinds of surveillance. You might staunchly disagree but you have to accept that it's a valid position.

> you have to accept that it's a valid position.

What if I don't accept it?

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#84

Post by yelloweyes »

Waterluvian wrote: post #35
ssss11 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's also always been pretty normal to have your photo taken by countries when passing through passport control. No not always, only recently. > I don't really see what the problem would be here? You’re kidding right? There’s multiple privacy problems. Sounds like you either benefit from mass surveillance or have been conditioned to it.

In my opinion it's a really bad idea to foster an attitude of, "if you're not with us then you're against us." Some people don't mind these kinds of surveillance. You might staunchly disagree but you have to accept that it's a valid position.

Children don't like getting vaccines either. But guess what? You have to protect stupid people from themselves.

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#85

Post by sunir »

mLuby wrote: post #75
crazygringo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re kidding right? There’s multiple privacy problems. No, not kidding. There's a legitimate government interest in identifying people entering and leaving a country. This isn't Facebook, or even cameras on street corners -- this is a government responsible for enforcing legitimate immigration policies at a legitimate location (the border) for a wide variety of reasons (safety, economic, etc.), which absolutely r…

You're correct—it is reasonable for governments to require a photo of yourself to associate with your passport. But it is not necessary to take a new photo every time you interact with the government. That's overreach, or at minimum wasting taxpayer money on unneeded photo storage. And I'd wager the reason they're doing this is because while a human can make a decent determination of whether the photo matches the per…

What is the problem with a new photo being taken? You say it like it is obvious but you haven’t actually made your thinking known.

Wasting taxpayer money in photo storage is a laugh. That isn’t the same category of argument as the idea that is is “overreach.”

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#86

Post by elliekelly »

chatmasta wrote: post #18
crazygringo wrote: post #9

Most relevant details, from the last link [1]: > It took her photo, comparing her picture to a preloaded photo databased of all the passengers with tickets on this flight, and then she got a check mark, indicating she was cleared to board. The whole process took about five to six seconds. > The Aruba experiment is expected to last somewhere between 45 and 90 days. > "We're basically capturing that picture at the boar…

Is it really that useful to identify someone who has overstayed their visa when they are leaving the country ? Sure, you then know not to let them in next time. But it seems like a lot of effort when there are so many people overstaying their visa and not leaving out of the airports. That said, even as a libertarian, privacy-conscious person, I'm not sure I have a problem with exit controls like this. It's important…

> Is it really that useful to identify someone who has overstayed their visa when they are leaving the country? Sure, you then know not to let them in next time.

This happened to me leaving London and it was a lot of fuss over nothing. I (American) had given my forwarding travel plans to the border agent upon arrival and I didn't notice but she marked my passport with a visa for an exact stay (just the weekend). Except she mistakenly wrote my exit date a day early. It took quite a bit of explaining to convince them not to put a giant "DEPORTED" stamp in my passport and even though they eventually believed me that it was a clerical mistake they definitely kept track in their system because I was questioned about it several months later when I went to the Falkland Islands.

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#87

Post by nemothekid »

breakingcups wrote: post #2

That's just bizarre. This would never, ever, fly under the GDPR.

If I am understanding this correctly this would be ok under the GDPR because the government is the one holding the data bag.

They got the images from CBP.

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#88

Post by unreal37 »

mLuby wrote: post #75
crazygringo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re kidding right? There’s multiple privacy problems. No, not kidding. There's a legitimate government interest in identifying people entering and leaving a country. This isn't Facebook, or even cameras on street corners -- this is a government responsible for enforcing legitimate immigration policies at a legitimate location (the border) for a wide variety of reasons (safety, economic, etc.), which absolutely r…

You're correct—it is reasonable for governments to require a photo of yourself to associate with your passport. But it is not necessary to take a new photo every time you interact with the government. That's overreach, or at minimum wasting taxpayer money on unneeded photo storage. And I'd wager the reason they're doing this is because while a human can make a decent determination of whether the photo matches the per…

They say they're not storing the new photos. Just matching them and discarding.

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#89

Post by unreal37 »

gumby wrote: post #46
chatmasta wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that useful to identify someone who has overstayed their visa when they are leaving the country ? Sure, you then know not to let them in next time. But it seems like a lot of effort when there are so many people overstaying their visa and not leaving out of the airports. That said, even as a libertarian, privacy-conscious person, I'm not sure I have a problem with exit controls like this. It's important…

> It's important to know who is crossing the border, in both directions. Why? And if there exists an important reason to know that someone is exiting the country does that same criterion not also apply to exiting a state or city or neighborhood? I am not being sarcastic; I am genuinely unable to come up with a reason it's important to track who leaves almost any place, except in highly unusual cases (e.g. "OK guys, c…

Most countries of the world have maximum visit lengths as part of a visitor visa.

And those maximum visit lengths are counted on an annual basis. So you can only visit the US 179 days out of 365.

So they need to know when you came in and when you left. It's not good enough to just leave and not tell anyone.

Re: JetBlue explains to a passenger how it got a photo of her face

#90

Post by seandougall »

mienski wrote: post #64
yalogin wrote: post #60

I can bet that they have a copy of all photos on their servers. No company will be foolish enough to build a business/service that relies on another entity, much so a government organization that is not known for building highly scalable services. This is a crucial part of their process and any delays will impact their bottom line. So they have all faces with them and so does every other company. Also, just the face…

While I’m totally onboard with the privacy concerns, this is ridiculous FUD to just assume that every company just took on the security and storage risk of holding that data. Find me an enterprise department/exec that would willingly take that on to support a trial. The corporate bogeyman is a great story but I think you’re being a little unrealistic here. These systems typically allow the picture to be sent in with…

I don’t disagree with your overarching point, but it can’t be quite that simple, if it works as advertised. In order for it to send a name with the photo, the passenger would have to scan some sort of documentation to provide their name, which would defeat the purpose of “your face is your boarding pass”.

It seems more likely that the CBP system compares against passenger manifests of upcoming flights. Which isn’t necessarily more intrusive, but it is a bit less straightforward than a simple yes/no query.

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