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Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

nextgov.com

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Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#31

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

wahern wrote: post #20
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #8

> “The process eliminates the need for an airline employee to manually check every boarding pass and passport while boarding a plane.” But you can hold accountable an airline or customs gate agent who doesn’t have access to a library of images forming a signature of your face and who may be bound by policies or laws regarding privacy and identity that could be nearly impossible to enforce or even verify with a digita…

I mean, from a security and safety standpoint it fails. From a financial standpoint it makes perfect sense, especially if CBP is picking up the tab. Not having to dedicate an employee to each gate that is currently boarding is a huge labor saver for airlines. From CBP's standpoint, they get to use fancy new technology while also furthering mission creep. It's win-win.

I’m super skeptical that it’s actually a financial cost saver. The data infrastructure and sunk costs are quite high for systems like this, and the non-zero defect or failure rates mean you still generally have to employ most of the same staff. They just do something else on the computer or deal with other gate check issues, stuff they generally still had to do already while scanning people onto the plane.

Face recognition systems are notoriously difficult to implement in a way that actually saves money.

Even if boarding huge flights happens faster, the limiting factors are usually runway traffic delays and other problems anyway.

All this infrastructure only so sometimes on a few international flights, when no special issues pop up, they can possibly save a small amount of money (relative to other costs involved) by boarding slightly faster (a matter of a few dozen minutes, max) and potentially depart sooner if there’s no other type of hold up.

It doesn’t add up.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#32

Post by wahern »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #24
wahern wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sure as heck want everyone else on the plane with me to be compared against their photograph. Why? I'm sure there's nefarious activity that could be prevented, I'm just struggling to identify activities that would make be feel (let alone actually be) unsafe on an airplane as a practical matter, and without doning a screen writer's hat. I'm assuming weapons are already adequately checked. And if not I'm not sure how…

IME questions like this typically come from people who don't deal with the bureaucracy of applying for visas very often, if at all. You assume fear of being bombed or hijacked, but it's really to make international travel easier and more efficient. Lack of a reliable way to verify identity is a major reason why applicants for admission (or applicants for a visa) are assumed "guilty until proven innocent", and a ton o…

But this has nothing to do with ports of entry or consular offices. It has to do with boarding at the gate. 99% accuracy is not remotely accurate enough to even begin replacing personnel at sensitive entry points.

And consider that to the extent you automate security you permit automating measures to subvert the system. The reported accuracy of these solutions describe efficacy for typical use cases; they're not a measure of resilience to attack, which is what people often assume.

Again, I'm not saying these things don't have their uses. Security just isn't one of them unless they're merely part of a larger, cohesive system (e.g. used to verify efficacy of auditing and reporting systems). In fact, they may decrease security if you rely on them as strong security measures.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#33

Post by wahern »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #31
wahern wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, from a security and safety standpoint it fails. From a financial standpoint it makes perfect sense, especially if CBP is picking up the tab. Not having to dedicate an employee to each gate that is currently boarding is a huge labor saver for airlines. From CBP's standpoint, they get to use fancy new technology while also furthering mission creep. It's win-win.

I’m super skeptical that it’s actually a financial cost saver. The data infrastructure and sunk costs are quite high for systems like this, and the non-zero defect or failure rates mean you still generally have to employ most of the same staff. They just do something else on the computer or deal with other gate check issues, stuff they generally still had to do already while scanning people onto the plane. Face recog…

  The data infrastructure and sunk costs are quite high for systems like this, and the non-zero defect or failure rates mean you still generally have to employ most of the same staff.
Right, which is why one could reasonably speculate that CBP is picking up the cost of the system. Without the capital costs it could easily make sense.

The clincher would be how edge cases are handled. Is CBP paying for a human behind the scenes to remotely override rejections? Is it acceptable customer service for falsely rejected passengers to wait at the gate until shortly before departure when an airline employee can show up to double-check their documents?

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#35

Post by weej »

noobermin wrote: post #21
refurb wrote: post #17

Once facial recognition becomes commonplace, the impact will be huge. “What were your whereabouts on the night of June 5th?” “I was at home all night.” “You’re lying. We have confirmation your face was recognized at the gas station, grocery store and bank between the hours of 7 and 9pm.” That sends a shiver down my spine.

Is this situation any different from security footage already at gas stations and the like? I suppose automatic aggregation of said data is more problematic.

I'd like to think so. A grainy, CCTV at a gas station with ZERO FACIAL RECOGNITION is not correlated and crossed check with my passport photo or physical movements.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#36

Post by jedberg »

> Officials touted the additional security the system provides—meeting a Congressional mandate to include biometric screenings—

Said someone who clearly doesn’t understand security. The entire point of adding biometrics is that it is in addition to the passport, not instead of. All they’ve done here is trade something you have with something you are. Sigh.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#37

Post by skywhopper »

I’m skeptical of the faster boarding claim. My perception is that it’s the physical loading of the plane cabin, rather than the scanning of boarding passes, that wastes time. Also, having dealt with the face scanners at the border entry points I’m also skeptical that self service face scanning will be faster than just scanning a boarding pass. Not to mention that security, not boarding, is the painful part of the process anyway. And 99% accuracy is not actually great...

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#38

Post by stevehawk »

sokoloff wrote: post #23
paxy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see the number of scanning lanes (which is usually 1) being a bottleneck on large aircrafts with lots of doors, like the A380 example they have given.

I've very rarely seen the case where there isn't a queue after the boarding pass scan and before the boarding door(s) and seating area of the airplane. This suggests that downstream of the boarding pass scan is already the true bottleneck of the system.

i believe that's why he (and the article) mentioned the A380 which can have something like 4 simultaneous embarking points (probably double that if they board from both sides of the plane).

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#39

Post by duxup »

skywhopper wrote: post #37

I’m skeptical of the faster boarding claim. My perception is that it’s the physical loading of the plane cabin, rather than the scanning of boarding passes, that wastes time. Also, having dealt with the face scanners at the border entry points I’m also skeptical that self service face scanning will be faster than just scanning a boarding pass. Not to mention that security, not boarding, is the painful part of the pro…

Yeah the scanners for tickets are basically ... put ticket on scanner, beep ... now wait in a new line while people load up stuff.

Re: Dulles Airport Surprises Passengers with Facial-Recognition Boarding

#40

Post by bacon_waffle »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #12

As long as false flags get sent to a human gate agent standing right there who can make manual approvals, I fail to see why anyone traveling internationally would object to this. I sure as heck want everyone else on the plane with me to be compared against their photograph. From a legal standpoint, domestic travel is different (and there should be open debate in Congress before they make a decision there). But I full…

> I fail to see why anyone traveling internationally would object to this.

If I'm understanding correctly, the new system is implemented on the departing side of the flight, and done (at least partly) in the name of security. So, to support this system, even more effort and equipment would be required in foreign airports for flights to the US.

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