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snakeyjake 4 days ago

Generally speaking you present ID to pass through security.

The facial recognition is based on the biometric data collected when you got your ID, the ID you presented to pass through security. The ID with your name, address, date of birth, and uniquely identifying number on it. The ID which is associated with your boarding pass. The ID they scan (or they scan the boarding pass which is associated with your ID) prior to letting you through security.

Using facial recognition changes nothing, absolutely nothing, except that it reduces the amount of time spent at the checkpoint.

It does not grant anyone access to any information they do not already have.

It does not impede the traveler in any way.

It does not change, at all, any aspect of one's privacy whatsoever.

"But I don't wanna..." doesn't seem like a defensible position.

sneak 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

It is more recent, multi angle, high res data. It allows their training data to be much better.

This "it changes nothing" attitude is unproductive.

grecy 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> the biometric data collected when you got your ID

When I got my license, which I can use to board a flight in my country I did not give fingerprints or an eye scan. They have my photo, DOB, name - not more.

goalieca 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe I’m old school but I despise the idea of the government tracking me as I travel. Time and time again they are caught violating privacy laws and abusing power.

ipython 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Given that you already need government issued ID that matches the name printed on your ticket to travel on an airplane, wouldn’t the government already have the ability to track you, regardless of facial recognition?

toomuchtodo 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Indeed, the government doesn't even need the ID, they ingest a data feed of Passenger Name Records (PNRs) from all airlines. This is why when TSA performs the automated identity proofing, comparing a photo of you to your ID, they don't require that you provide a boarding pass.

Comparing an ephemeral photo taken of you to your government credential at the TSA checkpoint is a temporary formality. At some point, the government credential presentation will be unnecessary.

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/clearing-cbp/passenger-name-recor... (Control-F "What information is collected?")

zekrioca 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You are basically arguing that facil recognition is not needed, which doesn’t seem what you want to argue about.

lotsofpulp 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The US government has access to all of your location history via Verizon/ATT/TMobile.

numeri 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The point of this program isn't that it makes things substantially quicker at the checkpoint – it is a minor speed-up at best. The goal is to normalize the collection of biometric data, to shift the Overton window of surveillance.

snakeyjake 3 days ago | parent [-]

The collection of biometric data is already normalized.

It has been normalized since the 1920s, when the FBI's central fingerprint repository was created.

And the end goal isn't the system that currently exists. It is a system in which the movement of passengers isn't halted. Someone watched 1990's Total Recall and said "we need a security checkpoint like that".

Also, the "Overton window" is a libertarian bullshit response to the natural shifts that occur in society, usually trotted out whenever libertarians get pissed off that "muh freedom" no longer excuses their bigotry and they can't make "because their knee-grows" jokes anymore.

grepfru_it 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

So you are saying that we should just accept that we have lost our privacy rather than to continue advocating for it?

snakeyjake 3 days ago | parent [-]

Yes.

That, instead of "people who think that this is an erosion of privacy are wrong" is exactly what I am saying.

Face scanners at airports change exactly and precisely, with no room for qualifications, unequivocally, irrefutably, nothing.

southernplaces7 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>The collection of biometric data is already normalized.

So by your logic we should just fully accept its further normalization with absolutely no pushback or regard for any notion of private life and activity?

>It has been normalized since the 1920s, when the FBI's central fingerprint repository was created.

This is a blatant bullshit comparison that you can't possibly be ignorant enough to compare to modern real-time data collection accessible to many levels of government for tracking you and your personal details down to a deeply minute level almost as you live them. The U.S government of the 1920s and for decades after had its repositories and files on people, but in any given moment they were unlikely to have any clue what you were doing or where you were and lacked the means to easily know these things unless they were specifically targeting you for a particular reason.

That by the way is as it should be, a world in which a powerful state that could easily at some point turn actively hostile in some unfair way can't also passively monitor anyone and everyone as it pleases. A world in which the state, if it wants to monitor someone heavily, needs to make an effort to do it, and through means that can only be sanctioned by specific legal procedures, for specific activities, based on specific legal motives.

No, the Overton window is not "libertarian bullshit" about natural shifts in society. There's no natural law that makes total surveillance axiomatic to a society, and normalizations of dangerously abnormal permissiveness are very real in many social contexts.

>usually trotted out whenever libertarians get pissed off that "muh freedom" no longer excuses their bigotry

What the fuck are you even talking about at all here? What's bigoted about wanting personal freedom or defensible privacy? So because some random hypothetical racist libertarian likes to make off-color jokes, defending privacy is only something done by racist bigots?

snakeyjake 3 days ago | parent [-]

>So by your logic we should just fully accept its further normalization with absolutely no pushback or regard for any notion of private life and activity?

Yes.

That, instead of "people who think that this is an erosion of privacy are wrong" is exactly my logic.

Face scanners at airports change exactly and precisely, with no room for qualifications, unequivocally, irrefutably, nothing.

Sorry I hurt your libertarian feelings. Some more YouTube videos on stoicism may help. They won't, but keep thinking they will.

southernplaces7 3 days ago | parent [-]

If anything friend it's you who's got the childish little mindset about these things, and other people. What a silly way to use a brain.

monksy 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was with you until "doesn't grant them info that they don't already have." It gives them the opportunity to update their face model of you in a confirmed and consistent manner.

It also doesn't improve anything:

An agent comparison of you vs the id is still considered to be the gold standard. When this system fails, you have to default to the agent's comparison. This is a slow down compared to the previous scenario.

The time for an id comparison isn't the bottleneck in security. It's the physical actions used to go through the TSA and the built in inconsistency to prevent people from speedrunning the screening.

zekrioca 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If it doesn’t change anything, why is it needed then? And I don’t think it is faster than a human matching the ID card against a person at all.

Molitor5901 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It could be used to "update" the record.