Live data from Hacker News

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

boingboing.net

121–130 of 241 posts

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

#121

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…

It might be just a convenient way to collect photos for the database.

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

#122
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They say but they could store photos by mistake. Especially if those are high-quality photos suitable for face recognition.

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

#123
post #109
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…

This is foolish. It would be very dumb for a company to take the liability if they did not have to.

They can say that the photos were stored by mistake and were supposed to be deleted.

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

#124

Here in Australia we have automated passport control gates that scan a chip in our passport then takes a photo of our face (and I assume does some matching with our passport photo) before allowing reentry. It's quite quick and very convenient. Although I'm not aware of any airlines being able to use the system for boarding.

This is only for going through customs, and controlled by the government, not a private company.

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

#125
post #38
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to what the airline said, the airline doesn't have the facial recognition data I absolutely do not believe the tweets from a company PR representative as to how their technology actually works.

Regardless of whether this PR person knows anything or not, I think the much more likely scenario is that they are sending facial recognition requests to a CBP API vs. building their own facial recognition database with 100s of millions of identities out of thin air.

If the database of photos has a business value then they will be looking for loopholes to store them. It would be stupid to spend money on new equipment and not maximize the returns.

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

#126
post #39

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 not about catching visa overstays on their way out. It’s about identifying who’s still here. Take the set of people who entered, subtract the set who exited, and anyone who remains who entered too long ago is an overstay.

You're math is fantastic.

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

#127

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…

Out of interest, how would you argue against someone using your justifications for facial recognition on street corners, which you seem to think is a step too far? Would your argument against street corner recognition systems have been different before and after facial recognition was required at the border? You mention that having your photo taken at passport control is “pretty normal”. Do you remember when it was n…

Parent's argument is that the government already has photos of all international travelers and the government already has a written record of each international arrival and departure. So, the delta between a written record of border crossing and a photo record of border cross is the government having additional photos of somebody they already have at least one photo of. For many people, the difference between a single photo and many photos is minor.

Government does not already have photos of all individuals who cross street corners (there is no legal requirement to have ID) and government does not record a list of names of each person who crosses the street. So, cameras at street corners have a much larger delta - between no photos and photos and between no internal location records and having internal location records.

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They don’t “need to know” for reasons which are of significant practical benefit to citizens/residents. But institutions like governments only “see” via data collection, and in general are happy to collect whatever is technically and socially feasible, and people involved in setting up databases seldom stop to think about the risks or trade-offs involved in collecting various types of data, or whether that data is me…

It seems to me that being opposed to someone breaking the law is not equivalent to being a sadistic xenophobe.

Finding people who rob banks at some point and punishing them is of great interest to people fearful of robbers who like disrupting robbers’ lives for no practical purpose because they gain sadistic satisfaction from cruelly exercising power over other people.

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

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t “need to know” for reasons which are of significant practical benefit to citizens/residents. But institutions like governments only “see” via data collection, and in general are happy to collect whatever is technically and socially feasible, and people involved in setting up databases seldom stop to think about the risks or trade-offs involved in collecting various types of data, or whether that data is me…

It seems to me that being opposed to someone breaking the law is not equivalent to being a sadistic xenophobe. Finding people who rob banks at some point and punishing them is of great interest to people fearful of robbers who like disrupting robbers’ lives for no practical purpose because they gain sadistic satisfaction from cruelly exercising power over other people.

[deleted]

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

#130

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…

I have a Green Card and I get my photo taken each time I enter the country. I assume the same process exists for non-citizens, and that CPB is using these photos for this process.
Post reply on HN