Thread: U.S. will use facial recognition at airports

U.S. will use facial recognition at airports

After a successful pilot at Washington Dulles International Airport last year, CBP will begin rolling out facial recognition technology at all airports of entry.

By Billy Mitchell
JANUARY 20, 2016 1:54 PM

U.S. border checkpoints at airports of entry nationwide will begin using facial recognition technology on foreign visitors and U.S. citizens after a successful pilot just outside the nation's capital, according to a new privacy disclosure from the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a DHS agency, piloted its "1-to-1 Facial Comparison Project" at Washington Dulles International Airport between March and May 2015, and now is bringing that technology to all U.S. airports of entry on a permanent basis, a DHS privacy impact assessment released Tuesday said.

The expansion will be incremental, starting with John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City sometime this month. The technology will be used to confirm the identity of travelers with electronic passports, which include a computer chip containing, among other data, a digital photo of the holder.

“CBP continues to provide innovative technologies to enhance homeland security while facilitating international travel,” CBP Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske said in a statement. “This biometric capability will aid our officers in identifying legitimate travelers while protecting them from fraud and identity theft with little to no delay to the entry process.”

The program is part of the DHS Science and Technology Directorate's Apex Air Entry and Exit Re-Engineering project, meant to increase "CBP’s capacity to screen travelers entering the United States (U.S.), and to confirm the departure of non-U.S. citizens from U.S. airports," according to a DHS fact sheet. The technology uses the image stored in a traveler's e-passport and compares it to a picture taken at the checkpoint as they present their documents.

The software gives a score between zero and 100 to indicate its certainty of a match. The technology is used at CBP officers' discretion.

The expansion comes after "the March 2015 test of this capability showed that biometric facial matching could increase the confidence with which [CBP officers] identified individuals without having a negative impact to port operations and traveler wait times," the PIA says.

During the pilot project at Dulles the photos taken for comparison were retained for technical analysis of the software's efficacy. But the privacy assessment says that going forward, photos will not be stored if they do not result in an enforcement or administrative action.

Additionally, with the expansion of program, CBP will also expand the travelers on whom it uses the technology. In the pilot, customs agents took and compared the images only of U.S. citizens 18 years and older. Now, it will include adult first-time travelers from the 38 Visa Waiver Program countries, "because DHS has identified an appreciable risk of passport and identity fraud among this population of travelers," the assessment states.

The VWP allows citizens of participating countries to come to the U.S. for 90 days for business or pleasure without requiring a visa. One condition for a nation's participation in the VWP is that it issues e-passports. VWP travelers arriving for the first time are also enrolled in CBP's fingerprint database, IDENT, so those who have visited the United States before can have their identity confirmed using fingerprints.

Many civil liberties organizations have raised concerns in the past of the privacy implications related to using facial recognition technologies at airports. The American Civil Liberties Union opposes concepts similar to the CBP program, worrying they could turn into widespread surveillance of innocent citizens.

"One threat is the fact that facial recognition, in combination with wider use of video surveillance, would be likely to grow increasingly invasive over time," the ACLU writes in a Q&A on its website. "Once installed, this kind of a surveillance system rarely remains confined to its original purpose. New ways of using it suggest themselves, the authorities or operators find them to be an irresistible expansion of their power, and citizens' privacy suffers another blow. Ultimately, the threat is that widespread surveillance will change the character, feel, and quality of American life."

The ACLU also cites a study by the National Institute for Standards and Technology that found a large rate of error in facial recognition technology to match photos taken only 18 months apart.

At this point, the project works only as a standalone system at the Dulles location "that does not communicate with any other CBP systems," the PIA says. CBP's intent is to create an integrated and nationwide system connecting the systems at each airport to one another and other existing CBP systems.

CBP did not return FedScoop's request for comment prior to publication.

http://fedscoop.com/customs-pushing-...ech-nationwide

Border facial recognition test program

May 29, 2015


The new technology is being used to help identify foreigners who stay in the United States too long. . .

They are acting like they are just rolling this out, but all airports and train stations started using Facial Recognition Technololgy (FRT) in 2002 after the 9/11 attacks.

It is why they want every state and every American, Canadian, and Mexican citizen to be in the Real ID biometric tracking program so that the FRT can create a record of who is where, when, and with whom.

Absolute government power through a complete surveillance society where security is kept by spying on the populace instead of using borders and citizenship.

W

Hasn't facial recognition been in use for nearly a century? That's why passports contain photographs. The agent looks at the photo and at the bearer to see if they match; that's the best facial recognition available.

Canada Mandates New Electronic Travel Authorization Program

Posted By Danielle Lifrieri and Immigration News Team on January 19th, 2016

Canada has mandated registration in a new electronic travel authorization program (“eTA”) for many individuals who do not require visas to travel to Canada. Introduced in August 2015, the program becomes mandatory for many visa-exempt individuals traveling to Canada by air on or after March 15, 2016. Individuals traveling to Canada by land or sea are exempt from registering. Citizens of the United States are exempt from the eTA system regardless of whether they travel to Canada by air, land, or sea.

Travelers Affected

Citizens of EU countries, US permanent residents, i.e. “green card” holders, and citizens of select other countries including Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand, are amongst those affected by the new regulations. If traveling to Canada by air, citizens of these countries and/or US permanent residents will need to register with eTA before traveling. This is particularly important for our clients to keep in mind if flying to Canada to renew a US nonimmigrant visa. The complete list of affected nationalities can be found here.

Exempt Travelers

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) also published a complete list of those exempt from registering with the new eTA system, which includes US citizens no matter what the mode of transport. In case you are not a US citizen, but happen to be a member of the British royal family, “Her Majesty the Queen of Canada and any member of the Royal Family” are exempt from registering. Many individuals with valid US visas merely transiting through Canada are also exempt.

Applying for eTA

CIC is accepting applications for eTA. Applicants need a valid passport (with a few exceptions), a credit card, and a valid email address.

Applications cost 7 CAD (Canadian dollars) and are valid for five years once approved. The application is done online here, via the CIC website. Additional information and instructions are available in ten different languages.

If you have any questions about international travel, please contact your Mintz Levin team 6-8 weeks before your proposed departure date.

http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x...zation+Program

It's just wasting money and stealing liberty.

At busy border crossing, foreigners now need to show their passports to enter Mexico on foot

@ http://www.alipac.us/f12/mexico-boos...ysidro-322332/

US Political Support Grows for Biometric Exit Screening

Posted on January 25, 2016


The US Customs and Border Protection agency’s expanding biometric border screening project is helping to pave the way for what could be America’s first means of reliably tracking departures from the country.

First undertaken as a pilot project at Virginia’s Dulles International Airport last year, the program, which matches passengers’ faces against the biometric data on their ePassports, is now being expanded to JFK International Airport in New York. It was designed as a means of improving border security, and could prove even more valuable in that respect if expanded further. That’s because if it were brought to many more airports and applied to departures, it could accurately track non-US visitors’ departures from the country, giving officials valuable data on which visitors are overstaying their travel visas.

The great concern isn’t fraud, but that those who overstay their visas could be potential terrorists in waiting. With that in mind, US Congress’ approval of an extra billion dollars in funding for the development of a biometric exit program—as per recommendations from the 9/11 commission mandated with exploring security options against terror attacks—could signal a growing willingness on American politicians’ part to support the expansion of this kind of biometric screening.

http://findbiometrics.com/us-politic...eening-301255/