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Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

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Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last I was in San Francisco International the TSA staff came barreling out of their door and the first agent out yelled into the terminal, "MAN! I really hope someone opts out today! I can't wait to give that guy a serious patdown." They're trained to operate in an unethical way.

SFO doesn't use TSA https://www.flysfo.com/about/airport-operations/safety-secur...

To a person not familiar with the minutiae of government structure "TSA" is a job position as much as an organization, and CAS does have the former.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will never happen. The long lines and inconveniences are the point, not a side effect. How many shoe bombers does the TSA catch in a day? 0. In a month? 0. Since the only shoe bomber? 0. We still take off our shoes. Same with underwear bombs. 0. We still partially undress and do the nude-a-tron. The point is, we could already ditch the lines, we don't want to.

This anti-tiger rock only costs $10 billion!

Now try the bomb detector wands

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#114

I'll take facial recognition over long TSA lines any day. I can't wait until we have full-throughput non-blocking walk-through security.

That won’t happen since they will always want to go through your bags either by X-ray or by hand, that won’t change ever.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#115
I can’t believe it has gone this far. I was flying out of Logan airport (Boston) and had to have my face scanned right boarded the plane. There was nothing about opting out. It seemed like I didn’t comply, I wasn’t flying.

I hate this. Feels so wrong and dystopian. They need to abolish this. It’s so unnecessary.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#116
post #58
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remove TSA. Airport security provides nothing.

So I’ve heard this a lot, but how can we actually test this? The only realistic test I can imagine here is that the TSA shuts down for a decade and we see what happens?

That’s a risk I’m willing to take. I hate the TSA. I’ll take my chances in a world without them if given the opportunity.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last I was in San Francisco International the TSA staff came barreling out of their door and the first agent out yelled into the terminal, "MAN! I really hope someone opts out today! I can't wait to give that guy a serious patdown." They're trained to operate in an unethical way.

SFO doesn't use TSA https://www.flysfo.com/about/airport-operations/safety-secur...

Other than a nearly identical uniform that says CAS in place of TSA there is no apparent difference. Which is why I probably didn't even realize. In any case my return leg was delayed so I rented a car to drive back and have never returned to commercial flights since.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#118
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation and scale? You can't imagine how technology that allows a small number of people to automatically surveil billions of people can enable horrors that would be more difficult if you needed to use a labor force of hundreds of thousands of humans?

What that has to do with TSA Checkpoint at the airport? How many people go to through that checkpoint isn't dictated by how automated it is - it's dictated by how many people are flying. All this thing does it speeds up process of you getting through TSA.

No faster than having a human hold up your id and compare it, plus now you don’t have yet another digital copy of your face floating around for the police state.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#119

When entering China, they take your fingerprints, iris, and I guess face too... I was there in 2019, at one point I was at an airport, and a screen was bragging, "Stand where the camera can see your face, and we'll tell you which way to your gate.". It worked too, the screen displayed my name, flight number and direction to my gate. And implicitly, "We can identify you wherever you are.".

I was in China a few years ago, didn't take fingerprints, iris, or face recognition. Just a routine passport check and that's it. I flew from Europe to Beijing, might be different if you fly from the US.

It changes every month it seems, port of entry is also probably significant.

Re: Senators say TSA's facial recognition program is out of control

#120

For this to work they must have already done facial recognition on everyone’s ID photos, so I fail to see what opting out even does for me from a privacy perspective. Seems like shutting the barn door after the horse is already out.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42230738

2. If people stand up for decency, they might get it.

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