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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

#201

Post by raxxorrax »

mschuster91 wrote: post #199
raxxorrax wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, fear was the strongest motivator for policies of this kind. If you get rid of increased controls on airports, flying would still be the safest form of travel and terrorism is a negligible danger exaggerated by media reporting. It is ridiculous what latest generation of politicians will leave behind. How can we get rid of this madness?

> How can we get rid of this madness? Hold politicians accountable for what they are doing, from the local community to the President. Defend the freedom of the press, especially when Trump goes on a rampage again. Vote for someone better than him, vote for someone actually progressive. Convince family, friends and co-workers. Organize yourself and head on to the streets. For those willing to practice with arms, join…

Trump cannot be the problem, since these controls were already implemented. Blaming dickhead absolves the people responsible.

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

#202

Post by Milner08 »

things wrote: post #162
jpalomaki wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe there’s automated passport control gates with face recognition in several airports. These are based on the photo stored on passport. Not sure how automatic these are - would be of course possible to have a human there looking at the photos. According to quick search there’s no specific resolution requirement for the image in biometric passport, but size should be min 12kB to have recognizable image. https:/…

There is a human looking at the photos. When you take the Eurostar you can see them sitting in a booth after the gates. If you look into the booth as you pass, you'll see a grid of photos on screen. I'm assuming they're overseeing it all rather than checking everything manually. I noticed that these gates were quite slow ID'ing me the first couple of times I went through them but now I hardly have the time to see my…

I always assumed they are storing every photo to help recognition because it definitely seems to get better the more you use it. You're right there is a human there though monitoring it, I assume they only step in when the system cant identify you.

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

#203

Post by Milner08 »

tikhonj wrote: post #130
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…

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.

Everyone on an ESTA has their photo taken when they enter the US (at least first time you enter on an ESTA. I don't always have it taken on subsequent visits). I would assume that is enough for them to match you.

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

#204

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

ben_w wrote: post #191
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stalin is 10M deads in the lead.

I thought most of those deaths were indirectly, resulting from agricultural and economic policies and forced relocations and only a relatively (10%) small number of executions? If you include economic causes, you might need to include the excess mortality of systematically impoverished communities in western nations — and I don’t just mean “PoC in the USA”, as I can point to a UK study claiming the government’s auste…

It looks like something of ~7M from the famines, ~2M from Gulags, ~1M from executions, uncertain number from torture.

Numbers from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...

I'd say if famines are the cheapest way, many dictators with a genocide mind set would do that if possible.

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

#205

Post by kzrdude »

willart4food wrote: post #113

It's kind of surprising that we're still surprised by this.

It's good that we are surprised. The total surveillance system is being normalized far too quickly.

At this rate, in 10 years we will see even more "conveniences" like for example automatic face id in shops and on websites that pull your payment information and can authorize payments from your card/account - with no setup.

People will say "Kinda spooky how they can just take my money automatically but it's convenient" and you'll be there to say "It's kind of surprising that we're still surprised by this." ;-) I hope!

That will be underpinned by even larger surveillance and data collections on people, that can do a lot of harm when/if data is leaked or the systems are breached.

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

#206

Post by wsy »

things wrote: post #162
jpalomaki wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe there’s automated passport control gates with face recognition in several airports. These are based on the photo stored on passport. Not sure how automatic these are - would be of course possible to have a human there looking at the photos. According to quick search there’s no specific resolution requirement for the image in biometric passport, but size should be min 12kB to have recognizable image. https:/…

There is a human looking at the photos. When you take the Eurostar you can see them sitting in a booth after the gates. If you look into the booth as you pass, you'll see a grid of photos on screen. I'm assuming they're overseeing it all rather than checking everything manually. I noticed that these gates were quite slow ID'ing me the first couple of times I went through them but now I hardly have the time to see my…

The human is only a second-level control in case the confidence level is too low, or the system can't match the face with the passport photo. Also, the face is matched against the photo stored in the electronic passport, not against a central database. With respect to resolution etc., there are specifications in place about the quality of the passport photo. If your photo doesn't meet them, you will be asked to submit another photo for your passport application.

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

#207

Post by seszett »

lazerwalker wrote: post #193
biztos wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's not quite the same thing, but most countries in the EU have no passport control upon exiting or entering the country as long as it's within the Schengen zone. So France has basically no idea who shows up from Germany or leaves via Belgium. The countries on the external borders are supposed to handle all that. Now I suppose it's possible there is a lot of data exchanged in real time and so on, but it's als…

To the parent's point, though, passports ARE checked at the point you exit the Schengen area, whereas they're generally not when you leave the US.

They are checked by the foreign country though, not by the country you're leaving.

I have not crossed that many non-Schengen land borders, but as far as I remember it was the same every time, when going from France to England through the channel, Belgium to England by train, France to Switzerland (before Switzerland joined Schengen) and Canada to the US.

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

#208

Post by aepiepaey »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #173
spullara wrote: post #170

It is annoying that the title of the article is inaccurate. They use an API that calls external government servers to compare the photos.

To be fair, it's not clear how these devices work. It sounds like they are taking a photo, submittiting it to an API and waiting for a result. However FTA linked in the Twitter exchange "preloaded photo databased of all the passengers". It implies that the devices that JetBlue are using for boarding, already have all the photos in them. If this hardware belongs to JetBlue (rather than CBP/DHS/etc), then one would be…

The same article later states

> "We're basically capturing that picture at the boarding gate, providing it to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They're identifying the traveler," Farrell said. "It's actually the U.S. government that's implementing the biometric matching system that does all the hard analysis and crunching of the data."

So I'd say it's more likely that it is CBP who has the database (and not JetBlue).

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

#209

Post by sunir »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #135
sunir wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

Not the person you are asking, but as someone who shares a similar feeling of distrust to authority, I'll provide you with my point of view: It's not just the picture, it's the databases and the veracity of mass data base mining that can come from it. To better explain: Right now powerful entities have files on me. My actives. And yours. The collection, use and sharing of these files between these powerful entities v…

They aren’t violating your rights. At least not in an obvious way. The government’s use of your photo ID is not controllable with the non-existent privacy law the US has not enacted.

However your concern about building a face database is valid. Note that China somehow can do it with only your Wechat profile. Maybe they are better at ML than the US. They are already automatically fining jaywalkers by face ID. And I assume worse.

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

#210

Post by dbrgn »

I sense there's a business opportunity for "finding another person's data that looks very similar to you according to facial recognition models"...

If there is such a person, you could sign up with their name / birthdate and walk through the control points without having to show your ID (which you didn't bring "because you thought the face ID was sufficient").

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