Janus - Use of Facial Recognition Expanded by the TSA
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Privacy, Technology and Perspective
Janus - Use of Facial Recognition Expanded by the TSA. This week, let’s look at the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) recent decision to expand its controversial facial-recognition program at 25 airports in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Facial Recognition, versus Manual Comparison: The FTA plans to start using facial recognition software – rather than live TSA personnel – to compare airline passengers’ faces to the pictures on their IDs. If the automated results show a match, the passenger will be waved through security; otherwise a live TSA agent will scrutinize the passenger’s face and ID, the way they do now.
You can read more about this decision at the following link:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsa-facial-recognition-program-airports-expands/
The Janus-Face of Privacy: The TSA’s decision highlights two sides of the same face: “Privacy” and “Security.” In a world of rampant privacy theft and abuse, it’s easy to forget that we need both and want both at the same time, though in different amounts and proportions at different times. Of course, we want “Security” protecting us always at a routine level, operating at a heightened level in some settings, and running full-blast in emergencies; but the Fourth Amendment exists for a reason and we demand “Privacy” also. Many cities believe Facial Recognition puts too heavy a thumb on the Security scale and have sharply restricted or banned it altogether, and it remains a controversial technique. But what about at the airport?
Sliding into Consent: What makes airports, courthouses, and similarly-sensitive places “different” is Consent. Travelers know they can’t fly anonymously on common carriers, and that they (and their bags and persons) are subject to positive ID and search. Less obvious are the scope and invasiveness by which searches have expanded. This expansion has happened incrementally and mostly without objection – starting from loudspeaker announcements (long ago), to metal detectors, to bag searches in cargo areas, to microdot government IDs, to sniffers, to kicking off shoes, and even to full-body scans. Alternatives exist for the random squeamish, but isn’t it remarkable how smoothly we’ve slid into accepting each incremental technique?
Janus’ Third Face: We think the reason why “incremental consent” has come so smoothly is Time – or what we might call Janus’ “third face.” It’s true that new search methods have been mostly driven by new security threats, but it’s true, also, that the timeline of their introduction has roughly paralleled steep drops in Americans’ patience and attention spans. The lesson seems to be that we’re more likely to give up some privacy if it saves us time. The TSA explicitly recognizes this. See the article below, where TSA Administrator David Pekoske is quoted as saying, “…[T]he image capture is fast and you’ll save several seconds, if not a minute [emphasis ours]:” That’s a selling point.
Meanwhile, Privacy: The TSA’s privacy policy is far from a model of completeness. You can judge for yourself by clicking on the links below first for the TSA’s “privacy policy” and below that for the “privacy documents” referenced within it:
https://www.dhs.gov/privacy-documents-transportation-security-administration-tsa
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Hosch & Morris, PLLC is a boutique law firm dedicated to data privacy and protection, cybersecurity, the Internet and technology. Open the Future℠.