this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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  • Travelers can opt out of facial recognition at US airports by requesting manual ID verification, though resistance or intimidation may occur.
  • Facial recognition poses privacy risks, including potential data breaches, misidentification, and normalization of surveillance.
  • The Algorithmic Justice League's "Freedom Flyers" campaign aims to raise awareness of these issues and encourage passengers to exercise their right to opt out.
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[–] [email protected] 187 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For international flights, US citizens can opt out but foreign nationals have to participate in face scanning, with some exceptions.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 164 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'll bet one of the exceptions is having a bunch of money.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I remember when travelling in the US (Im a foreigner) there was a vip pass thingy to skip lines and enter without even talking to a migration officer (I think). Really seemed like a rich person pass

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm Canadian and I used to have a pass like that. It was $50 at the time and valid for 5 years.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago

Hey everyone, this guy's loaded!

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[–] [email protected] 140 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Stupid privacy people. What's the worst that could happen? A fascist coming into power next year who could misuse the data?

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

I'm going to assume they can photgraph you the moment you walk into the airport.

I used to be extra during the TSA body scan BS. And honestly, I felt like they won.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They'll always win because they can just prevent you from flying.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago

They pulled me in a private room when I refused to body scan and my bag was suspicious.

It was an extra 25 minutes. Enough to be inconvenient as they tried to find two available TSA agents willing to body check me then check every single item in my suitcase.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That's the fun part about the war for privacy. We have already lost and if you make a big deal about it they're just going to make your life hell!

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago

It's not such a binary thing as winning or losing, it's a constantly shifting process. The only way to actually lose is by giving up -- instead, consider it making it as hard as possible for your privacy to be infringed upon. Sometimes it's more inconvenient, but what makes us such a farmable populace is our reluctance to be inconvenienced. Be good at being uncomfortable.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I tried to refuse the face scan and they looked at me like I just grew eye stalks. After a long pause, I said never mind I need to catch this flight, let's do it.

It's not a hill I'm willing to die on, even though I'm disappointed with the practice.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago

I refused, it went fine. I had to repeat myself because it was unexpected and dudebro wasn't prepared, and they had to turn on the other machine and wait for it to start up, but it only delayed me like 2 minutes. The more people ask, the easier it gets.

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[–] [email protected] 69 points 3 months ago (8 children)

I’m okay with the TSA scan (pre-check) since.. you know.. they already have you if you took a picture for your ID.

Those “clear” people however. Who TF thinks it’s a good idea to hand your biometric info to a corp?

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago (2 children)

As I said. They already have it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

Isn't reducing the size of the dataset worth it? I'd rather them have a picture from three years ago than a new scan every month or two.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago

Clear is now a TSA “vendor” for the precheck process. The machines they use for the sign up process - at least the airport I was at - don’t have the eye scanning camera in the kiosk.

The Clear representative I was asking questions of had said they don’t require eye scans for Clear, though that is the default. People can ask to use just fingerprints, which he said does disrupt the terminal process as the agents don’t think to ask if fingerprints were what was registered when the eye scans fail.

I am not advocating for Clear. I refuse to use them. I simply do want to call out that they are one of 3 who handle the process for the TSA now. People do have a choice of which of the three to use.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Brit here. About eight years ago I flew from London to Belfast and return for business. We don't need a passport to travel to Northern Ireland, just photo id like driving licence is fine.

Coming back to London I approached the gate and before I could pull out my wallet to show my id, the guard says " Good evening Mr. Codandchips have a safe journey "....

Yes they have facial recognition, the cameras are visible but you don't notice them.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (1 children)

For international flights, US citizens can opt out but foreign nationals have to participate in face scanning, [with some exceptions]

I had no idea we were already at that point.

always wanted to visit the US. I guess that won't happen then.

I refuse to participate in this dystopia. But I'm a little worried this will make me a recluse

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Trust me you're already a recluse relative to most by being on here. If you observe what passes for a "normal" "person" these days, they will endlessly scroll algorithmic ai-generated incomprehensible horrors on Tiktok, then purchase something through an ad from temu, they do not think. They are gone.

But once you stop worrying that you may be saying no to experiences too much purely on principle, then you're free to go even further and eradicate surveillance capitalism influence from your life altogether. One day you can ascend to even go smartphone-free.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

I figure that by being in the airport there's enough footage of my face from security cameras that I didn't consent to (other than by being in public) that the scan of my face while boarding is moot.

Opting out of this face scan in particular is like using Chrome to browse the web, but searching with DuckDuckGo "for privacy reasons"

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (5 children)

There's probably a huge difference in resolution.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Opt out. If we don't exercise our rights, we lose them.

"What if they retaliate and make life difficult for me? "

That's both illegal and against policy. If someone delays your right to travel for this specific reason, delay their job by asking for their supervisor and their name and employee number. Then file a complaint. That will dissuade that public servant (and their leadership) from exhibiting such behavior and encouraging it respectively.

"But they are capturing your image in 10 skillion other public locations."

  1. Sure, and you have the option to create your own privacy in public.
  2. Further, what's the real purpose of the scanner at the TSA check if they already have that detailed image of your retina, your facial pore patterns and whatever the fsck else they store? They don't have that level of detail yet on CCTV.

If you don't care, then that's fine. Some people don't mind the slow encroachments on 4th Amendment protections. Cool. Others do. Cool also. That's why we can opt out.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If you already have a passport and opt out of facial recognition, you're only deluding yourself into a false sense of privacy. In fact, if you enter the screening area at all in an airport, you are kidding yourself if you think you can maintain some semblance of privacy. The government knows what you look like. Calm down and move on with your life.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 3 months ago (16 children)

Fuck calming down. That's how we got into this mess in the first place. People are to complacent with privacy. Anyone that thinks this attitude won't lead to terrible things is a fool.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

I went vacationing in another country and it was kinda uncomfortable being scanned by cameras, then scanning my passport, then moving across country lines and getting cameras and another scanning of my passport.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I did this during an international trip last year coming back into the country. The guy mostly seemed confused and kind of suspicious, but it was nbd.

They will potentially take you out of line to a side room to hand you off to someone else. It seemed to be an area where they deal with any oddball kind of things. There was a lady ahead of me who was more raucus and upset about some issue with her ID. The guy who checked mine mainly seemed kind of bemused, like it was unusual.

Be prepared for "We have the biometric data from your photo already, why do you care?"

You're not obligated to give them a super detailed justification. Just remain polite and unconfrontational, and explain that you prefer not use the system as long as the right remains afforded to you to opt out.

(Note, this right only extends to US citizens)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Like I get it, it’s scary and I don’t want them to have my data, but my picture is being taken ALL the time basically everywhere I go. Is putting my foot down for this specific type really making a difference?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's the only real way to push back that other folks will notice if enough of us do it.

Last time I went through DC a few weeks ago they were using these. I saw a sign saying you're welcome to opt out. Nobody even questioned what they were doing and were just going along. When it was my turn I politely said I'd rather not do the scan. Dude just glanced at my ID and waved me through. The next few folks behind me blinked and said they didn't want the scan either. If enough people push back it can at least maybe slow down the normalization of constant surveillance.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

Put your foot down everywhere then -- it's a fallacy to think that it's not worth it to resist data harvesting because it already gets collected "everywhere" anyway, take one step at a time to make it harder and harder. Opting out of this is just one step.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"Normies" avoiding scanning their face is useless because the vast majority of them still use Instagram and other social media services full of surveillance

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago

The game was lost for me when I started getting fingerprinted at certain airports. This privilege used to be reserved for suspected criminals. Now we're are all suspected criminals on a default setting.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The last time I flew they did this, but there was a huge sign that said photos are immediately deleted after verification...is this not true?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Just for example, that's an easy way to save just the biometric signature and have very few people question it.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

Also, bureaucratic lies can be technically true. They copy the photo from the original device to a database, then delete the photo on the device. So it's technically true the photo was immediately deleted, it's just also copied and persisted forever. And a bureaucrat will proudly stand in front of you all day and tell you they deleted the photo, and they will sleep well that night with not any concern

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

It’s discussed in the article. We can’t really be sure if they do, but they already store the measurements of your face along with other bits of metadata. They could reconstruct your face with it even without the photo. It’s a deceptive claim, because even if they throw away the camera video they still have your face for all intents and purposes.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You're already on hundreds of cameras by walking into any airport in the world. Do they need your consent to run facial recognition software on the security footage?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I used to work for a company that did various kinds of biometric recognition. I unfortunately was paraded past these cameras many times for testing purposes, so my face was compromised many moons ago.

We had two kinds of products we installed in airports. When looking at large crowds most airports wanted cameras that would monitor the flow of traffic, determining if there were any bottlenecks causing people to arrive at their gate (or baggage claim) after their luggage.

The other product was facial recognition for identification purposes. These are the machines you have to stand right next to. There are various legal reasons airports did not want to use any crowd-level cameras for identification. They hadn't obtained consent, but also, the low resolution per face would lead to many more false positives. It was also too costly.

But we did have high def cameras installed in strategic locations at large music halls. These private companies were less concerned with privacy and more concerned with keeping banned individuals out of their property. In those cases, we registered faces of people who were kicked out for various reasons and ignored all other faces.

My point I guess is twofold: first, you might not be facially tracked in as many places as you think you are. Second, eventually you will be and there's not a whole lot we can do to stop it. For many years, Target has identified people with their payment card, used facial recognition to detect when they return to the store, and used crowd tracking to see where in the store you go (and sometimes they have even changed ad displays based on the demographics of people standing nearby).

Mostly, you will be identified and tracked when there is financial incentive to do so.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago

It's about normalizing survellience, and the article also says this as an opinion further down in the text.

Everyone can see that we are going towards the society in black mirror, with social scores, and people being punished for not complying with rules of any kind. I'm glad I'm kind of old because the future will suck.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

I find stupid to give away my biometric data to everyone asking for it just because I give it away once in exchange of my passport, but I guess that's just me.

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