Original question by @[email protected]
For those of you who travel in the united states, you’ll know they now have facial recognition scans when checking your id. You can opt out by telling them you don’t want to take the picture. I do every time, but I wonder what the point of the scan is if you can just opt out. That given, why do you think they do it? What prevents them from forcing you to do it?
To those of you who live outside of the united states, have you seen a similar increase in security at your airports?
Yes.
Even if it didn’t explicitly stop my biometric data from being taken and transferred to a government database every single time I fly, it would be a vote against the system itself existing. The whole reason they are allowing people to opt out right now is to test how acceptable it is to people, to hopefully make it mandatory given too little pushback from the public.
Opting out doesn’t just protect your biometric data now, it protects everyone in the future from having their biometric data taken from them without a choice if this system is allowed to spread unopposed.
Yes, I opt out. The point of the scan is to (1) build a thorough database (although DOGE probably already did that, we just haven’t found out yet), and (2) to accustom you to your identity not belonging to you.
The second point is the real point of opting out - as soon as nearly nobody opts out, and they’ve made headway on a database, it will no longer be optional. Opting out in that sense is the only vote you’re going to get to cast against it.
Unfortunately, opting-out isn’t the privacy win you think it is. Next time you go to the security checkpoint at an airport, I want you to look up and note the number of security cameras on the ceiling. It would be a trivial task to scan your face using one of those cameras and match it to your identity using the timecodes in the cameras along with the timestamps on the ID card scanner.
What I found, though, is you shouldn’t call the boondoggle cam a boondoggle cam any more than you want to call the cancer box by that name. TSA people with low blood sugar will act like they have low blood sugar, and they have way too much power for a group so provably low in value.
Yes, every time. Fuck that
It also takes longer for the scan. I was with a group and figured I’d hold everyone up so positioned myself last, and it was 2 seconds to hand them my ID. The only way this the scan is more convenient is for people who don’t care to pull out their ID or are too timid to say “no facial”
Haven’t flown in years. Didn’t know this was a thing. Creepy.
I take the photo. My face is in so many gov’t databases from badging at various jobsites over the years, I don’t care if they verify it’s me going somewhere. The itinerary is already highly personal so they know that “the guy with that face” is going somewhere.
Yes very unfortunately this ship sailed long ago, and a tiny fraction of people opting out accomplishes nothing at this point. When the 3D nudity scanners arrived i opted out several times, but not nearly enough other people did, so it was pointless. A single digit percent of people opting out accomplishes nothing, we need to stand together in large numbers to accomplish any change. But for whatever reason the large majority of americans have decided to roll over and let the government take away any of our rights that they want to
3D nudity scanners? What? What are those and for how long you guys have had them in airports? The most I’ve stepped through were metal detectors, and my luggage through X-ray
Thanks… I hate it :( but what can I do? Haven’t been in an airport in ages.
I mean, I’ll get buck naked right in the line so the nudie scanners never scared me.
It’s not about being comfortable with your nudity, it’s about basic personal freedoms
Here’s my secret: I don’t fly anymore.
New Delhi airport tracks each passenger as soon as they step in. Permission or not.
Thermal, gait analysis… you name it. Every movement is tracked until you fly out.
Opting for the facial scan simply speeds up few processes, and was mandatory only during covid mask times.
Yeah it’s weird. I always opt out and it seems to make no difference whatsoever.
Never encountered one.
No use for me. DHS and probably every other three letter agency in the US have my prints, name, and picture on file after getting various work visas a while back.
Last time I flew was October of '23. No face scanning then, when did this start?
I don’t know what face scan as I haven’t flown into the states in a very long time.
In Canada we have a machine at customs that takes your picture when you come into the country. This isn’t optional. I take the opportunity to make the absolute most ridiculous face I can every time and it brings me copious amount of joy. It then prints out a little slip that I give to the customs person at the gate who is usually chatting and doesn’t even look at it. I imagine those slips go somewhere, though I couldn’t really care less where.
No, it’s absolutely pointless to opt out.
A fatalist take like this doesn’t help anyone. Do you lock your doors at night even though you’re not be continuously robbed? It’s always worth it to try and protect yourself.
I applaud your idealism.
My take on it is there’s more downside doing the facial scan than opting out. The worst case is the scan can miss-identify you and then you get pulled aside for questioning. The worst case for opting out is raising suspicion with an agent? Sure all the security cameras could be doing facial recognition and come up with false positives, but why add another opportunity to be misidentified by doing the scan?
No, and it helps tremendously, if you leave and enter the country.
Like privacy wise it sucks but, I was the only one in my family that wasn’t stopped for manual check at customs because I was already in the system
What was that saying?
“Trade privacy for convenience and you end up with neither”?
I pick and choose my battles. Online? Sure. In a federal building with 700 other cameras that have already more than easily got my mugshot 20x over as soon as I entered, I’m just going to take the Convenience benefit. It’s not going to change anything.
Establishes procedure, and there are different rules on what can be done with it (the government doesn’t really care, as Snowdon and Manning showed us, but if it can be brought to court and maybe historically it can be shown to be a difference).
Also, there’s the convenience for those implementing it. If it’s more of a faff for them, it’s more likely to fail.
But convenience is always a powerful compulsion, which is why it’s leaned on and used a lot.
