Imagine a world where airport security was as simple as taking a selfie. As you pass through the checkpoint, a camera quickly snaps a picture of your face, matching your unique biometric mapping to a database and confirming your identity within seconds. This is the objective of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) facial recognition initiative, which has been quietly rolled out in airports since 2016. However, behind this appearance of futuristic convenience exists a more sinister reality that poses a significant threat to privacy rights.

There are nearly 84 airports currently installed with Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2) scanners worldwide, with plans to increase this number to over 400 in coming years. The Transport Security Administration (TSA) claims that the images captured by scanners are deleted shortly after their capture, although Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) documentation shows this only applies to U.S. citizens: most non-U.S. citizen travelers are enrolled in the DHS Biometric Identity Management System for up to 75 years. While travelers can opt out of scanning, reports show that instructions are often unclear, TSA officers are generally uncooperative or coercive, and in many cases travelers are not made explicitly aware or are lied to about their right to opt-out. 

The steady integration of facial recognition technology (FRT) into air travel poses significant concerns for privacy and security ethics, particularly how much personal information we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of convenience. Predicated on a more than two-decade-old mandate to incorporate automated biometric entry-exit systems for foreign nationals, the DHS has overstepped its bounds and created an atmosphere of surveillance that extends to all travelers. Even with current pressures against the integration of FRT and biometric surveillance at airports, the U.S. Senate still recently passed FAA reauthorization without the inclusion of a bipartisan amendment to pause FRT deployment at U.S. airports.

Federal inaction on regulating FRTs generates significant risks, particularly when it comes to racial bias. Only 4 years ago, a Michigan man was wrongfully arrested for a crime he didn’t commit simply because an AI software deemed him a probable match for surveillance footage captured at the scene of the crime. This is just one example of the repeated failures of FRT in accurately identifying individuals, particularly people of color. These concerns aren’t ungrounded, as there have been seven known instances of facial recognition leading to wrongful arrest. Multiple studies confirm these fundamental flaws, with FRT deployment associated with an increase in Black arrest rates and a decrease in White arrest rates. Even as TSA claims a 97% effectiveness rate, assuming around 3 million individuals travel each day, around 90,000 individuals will still be misidentified. Rolling out biometric surveillance across airports worldwide would only further compound pre-existing discrimination. 

Despite the laundry list of concerns regarding the use of FRT in air travel, there still exists a considerable lack of oversight for biometric systems. While CBP states that photos (of U.S. citizens) are kept for “no more than 12 hours after identity verification,” concerns still remain about the storage of related biometric data collected through facial scans. Additional privacy threats arise from the collection of faceprints—the coded representation of FRT scans—data CBP makes no data collection statement on. Research demonstrates that these face-prints can be used to reverse engineer the images they are based on, even when given only a partial template. This raises major concerns not only for the ability of CBP to bring back facial scans from the digital grave but also for the potential for rogue actors to gain access to face-print databases and re-create facial images, even without full datasets. These concerns have already become realized, with over 184,000 traveler images being compromised in 2019 during pilot CBP facial recognition programs. 

The use of FRT in TSA checkpoints is only one example of the continuing expansion of the surveillance capital of the U.S. government. While the technology may reduce long security lines during the holidays, the benefit comes at a considerable cost to the individual privacy and rights of those who are subjected to it. The continued buildup of a database of anyone who flies, domestically or internationally, risks creating a dystopian future where simply going for a walk places you at risk of being scanned and cataloged. As biometric surveillance becomes increasingly pervasive we must exercise our right to say no; opt-out of FRT at airports, put pressure on technologists to prioritize the development of anti-discriminatory FRT and artificial intelligence, and stay vigilant about the potential side effects of everyday surveillance.