Bay area airports using facial recognition to speed up travel

Facial recognition technology can help airport passengers catch imposters and process travelers more efficiently. However, the technology has raised privacy concerns. (Getty Images)

To get into America fast, your most important travel tool is now your face.

Three Bay Area airports are deploying a new facial identification technology called Easy Access to screen incoming international passengers and track certain travelers in San Jose. It’s catching imposters and handling travelers more efficiently — but it’s also raising privacy concerns.

On a recent morning, James Hutton of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said, “They get instant clearance” as a large number of travelers streamed through the immigration control booth at San Francisco International Airport and stopped for a moment.

“The camera automatically performs the identification, telling the customs officer, ‘This is the person in front of me.’ “

The old approach we relied on for so long – scanning and stamping passports – is gone.

Instead, government officials have deployed cameras alongside customs officers at all 238 international airports, 13 seaports and every pedestrian and bus interchange along the country’s northern and southern land borders in a major overhaul of its strategy to process travelers. The new technology It was introduced at Bay Airports in 2020 and completed nationwide at all ports of entry last June.

TSA agents are testing similar devices at San Jose International Airport and others to check-in flights — a “side-to-side” device that uses a passenger’s face as a boarding pass.

“Your face is like a boarding pass,” Simplifying passengers’ boarding process, Hutton said. “If we confirm that the person who went through TSA inspection is the same person at the gate, you don’t have to take your passport out of your pocket.”

It’s a far cry from the instant-anywhere facial recognition seen in many popular TV crime shows, but biometric technology, which uses a person’s unique physical characteristics to verify their identity, is increasingly used by private businesses and law enforcement.

Facial recognition is a familiar feature of smartphones, replacing passwords. Most banks use “FaceID” to allow customers to securely log into their mobile banking applications. Target, Walmart and Lowe’s are testing facial recognition to combat shoplifting and fraud by identifying known thieves.

Cameras began replacing self-service passport kiosks in 2019 after a 2016 congressional order mandated that the Department of Homeland Security record the entry and exit of all foreign nationals. The first-ever effort at San Ysidro’s pedestrian crossings is aimed at preventing terrorism and catching people who overstay their visas.

The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of the technology, offering a “contactless” way to handle passengers. Officials do not need to scan passports or clear kiosks.

“This approach makes sense from a national security perspective,” said Stephen Flynn, founding director of the Boston-based Global Resilience Institute.

“Given the volume, speed and variety of goods, shipments and commodities moving through the world’s airports, seaports and border crossings, border control efforts at ports of entry are always a needle-in-the-door challenge.”

But civil liberties and digital privacy groups say the technology poses a fundamental threat to privacy.

“We’re seeing this continuous use of facial recognition in more and more areas of our lives. Albert Fox Kahn, executive director of the New York-based Intelligence Technology Oversight Project, says we’re giving it to him with the promise that it will somehow make our experience more comfortable.

“Once you have someone’s biometric data, you have it for life,” he said. “You can change your credit card number. You can change your Social Security number. But you can never change your face. And while a program today tracks our faces for only one purpose, it’s creating a biometric infrastructure to track — even if agencies want to — for years to come.”

Compared to fingerprints, facial recognition technology offers greater potential for the development of surveillance tools, say critics. This is because it can be used for surveillance through official video cameras – recording someone’s movements without their knowledge or consent.

Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, said the technology is racially biased, with studies showing that error rates increase significantly when applied to people of color.

How does the new system work?

When you fly into the US and arrive at the customs booth, a camera takes a picture of your face. The computer then checks that photo against all the pictures in the “gallery” of your upcoming flight. This is possible because airlines are required to provide a list of passengers – and fellow travelers – to submit their photos to the US government in advance on their passports or visas.

If your new photo matches your database photo, you do not need to submit your passport. The National Institute of Standards and Technology recently found facial biometrics to be nearly 99% accurate.

The line jump system also uses global input face comparison technology.

If your photos don’t match, the system reverts to the usual process: officials look at your face, ask you to swipe your passport, and may require you to enter a fingerprint. They ask tough questions: “Where did you go to school? What was your school mascot? “