Concern over wider use of technology in public.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: For the next three months, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents will test facial recognition technology that has some people worried that anonymity will go the way of the dodo.
The new technology is specifically being utilized to help identify immigrants who remain in the United States beyond their allotted purview, according to CBS News.
“CBS This Morning” was given a demonstration of the technology at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, just outside of the nation’s capital. The technology compares photos in passports with the faces of the people presenting them and rates how likely they are to be a real match. It can sniff out a fraud in second and immediately alert an officer to investigate.
But privacy rights advocates are concerned the technology’s implementation could lead to a “Big Brother” scenario where agencies could use biometrics to track law abiding citizens. Speaking to CBS News, Harley Geiger, Senior Counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, ominously foreshadowed: “This is really just the beginning.”
Customs informed CBS it has taken close to 4,000 pictures of travelers at Dulles during a three-month pilot program. Their images are being saved in an allegedly secure database that is not shared.
“The real concern is not so much this particular pilot program, it is that this particular pilot program is a step towards a larger program,” Geiger said. “Not just in ports of entry, but also in public places, mass transit systems throughout the domestic United States.”