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ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

404media.co

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Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#81

Post by qingcharles »

dmitrygr wrote: post #69
jazzyjackson wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking photo is one thing, storing biometrics to compare against without consent is quite another Illinois has the Biometric Information Privacy Act. https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/ILCS/Articles?ActID=3004&Ch...

Fair. If anything is stored, it likely would be illegal in some states.

Frustratingly, the BIPA might exclude these offensive actions. It was really designed to protect customers from bad businesses. This sort of action probably didn't factor into it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45750955

From the statute: "A private entity does not include a State or local government agency."

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#82

Post by dogman144 »

mrbombastic wrote: post #39

If you haven’t seen it this video is a dystopian display of this tech in action: https://www.reddit.com/r/EyesOnIce/comments/1ogm1qk/ice_agen... I am struggling a bit personally with how to grapple with the fact that the career I have chosen has ended up bolstering all the horrible inclinations of those in power. I think we need some kind of tech workers collective and some version of the hippocratic oath to start pu…

I think a lot of tech needs to go through that struggle.

From the perspective of a long career in infosec, what’s occurring now was enabled a longtime ago by broad-based industry consensus. Concerns then, which == awful stuff occurring now, were robustly dismissed by many many many devs with s/strong viewpoints/paychecks.

The only silver lining I can see is we’re taking our medicine now, but there’s a lot more to go through still, on the back of many significant tech capabilities.

For example, Flock was kept out of many cities, but Amazon was not, Flock just signed a data sharing deal with Ring. That’s a no-nonsense, nationwide, warrantless vehicular and pedestrian tracking network mechanism.

Not great, Bob! But RSUs for building it all sure was great.

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#83

Post by evanjrowley »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #47
fabian2k wrote: post #24

The absolutely outrageous thing is that apparently they are instructed to ignore all other evidence of citizenship if that app says someone is not a citizen. So even if you have your birth certificate ready, doesn't matter. This is completely lawless. From the article: > He also said “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and…

Biometrics are more protected in IL than an other states as well. Facebook settled a big lawsuit just for automatically tagging people (actually the suit was about storing the biometric face data at all without consent)

Legal action against this is going to be a tough, possibly unfeasable battle.

Whatever the laws are, they probably contain exceptions for the use of biometrics for law enforcement purposes.

In terms of court precedent, biometrics are not protected by the 4th amendment, because your face is not considered a secret that the government could compel you to reveal.

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#84

Post by neom »

oceansky wrote: post #2

I wonder who is storing this data, I would bet Palantir. Possibly Oracle too.

Did some research, biometrics specifically for facial ID for DHS/CBP seems to be awarded to NEC and Thales.

https://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/biometrics/face/neof...

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#85

Post by puppycodes »

Seems like this would be to collect faces of what they consider "dissedents" rather than verify citizenship which can be done much more accurately through a mobile fingerprint reader.

Then again, who needs accuracy when you dissapear people without a warrant.

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#86

Post by yasp »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #48
yasp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your policy for complying with the patchwork of national biometrics laws?

Ignore them? Operate outside of US reach. The tubes are global. EDIT: Legally, you have no right to privacy in public, if your photo is captured in public (US centric), broadly speaking. You have the right to record law enforcement officers exercising their official duties in public. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/yes-you-have-right-fil... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/federal-judge-upholds-... https:/…

Taking someone's photo is different than storing their biometrics. The latter would violate laws such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometric_Information_Privacy_...

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#87

Post by roywiggins »

stronglikedan wrote: post #50
RajT88 wrote: post #29

I think Family guy had a gag about this... https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/family-guy-skin-color-chart

that has nothing to do with this

SCOTUS has endorsed using "apparent ethnicity" as grounds for a stop:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/justice-brett-kavanaugh-a...

Bovino says they do profile people on how they look:

> “Then, obviously, the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?” he said to the reporter, a tall, middle-aged man of Anglo descent.

https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/09/29/feds-march-into-...

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#88

Post by jimt1234 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #35
dmitrygr wrote: post #30

'Katz v. United States' was quite clear - you have no expectation of privacy in public. Anyone may photograph you and use said photos. Do I like it? No. But that is the current caselaw in USA. "What a person knowingly exposes to the public [...] is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." - Justice Potter in 'Katz v. United States'

If they ignore all other forms of evidence that you're a citizen, that goes beyond privacy in a public space

This ^^^ What is the point of having an ID in the first place, if they can just ignore it?

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#89

Post by throw0101c »

elicash wrote: post #6

The irony of doing this while covering their own faces

> The irony of doing this while covering their own faces

    It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy 
    as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things 
    they are doing to people were never meant to be 
    equally applied.
    
    It’s not an inconsistency. It’s very consistent
    to the only true fascist value, which is domination.
    
    It’s very important to understand, fascists don’t
    just see hypocrisy as a necessary evil or
    an unintended side-effect.
    
    It’s the purpose. The ability to enjoy yourself
    the thing you’re able to deny others, because 
    you dominate, is the whole point.
    
    For fascists, hypocrisy is a great virtue—the greatest.
* https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267

* Via: https://kottke.org/25/03/for-fascists-hypocrisy-is-a-virtue

Re: ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship

#90

Post by Molitor5901 »

I wonder if this is a portend to an American social credit score, like where China uses facial recognition to identify criminals at concerts[1], and jaywalkers, etc. which severely impacts a person's ability to get a job, housing, etc.

I can't help but assume this is already being used at retail establishments, but now it could be tied into law enforcement databases, and .. communicate..

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