DAVE ROSS

Ross: Facial recognition arriving soon at your airport

Jul 5, 2019, 7:11 AM

facial recognition...

A facial recognition device used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Miami International Airport. The facility is the first in the country using expedited passport screening via facial recognition tech, which verifies a traveler's identity by matching them to the document they are presenting. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

I was talking with Washington Post Tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler about how China has made it’s airports super-friendly.

“If you go to a Chinese airport, not only can your face be your boarding pass, but also if you step up to one of those signs where they tell you what flights are leaving it’ll scan your face and tell you, Oh! Your gate is C23, walk this way,” Fowler said.

Smile! Cops now using facial Rekognition for shoplifters

Yes! No fumbling with a boarding pass or ID. No getting lost. Just look into the camera.

And American airports are starting to use facial recognition for boarding, too.

Oh, you may resist at first but once they start offering extra legroom for a face-scan, well, as Ben Franklin said, “who wouldn’t give up essential Liberty for a little temporary legroom.”

Plus, the Department of Homeland Security plans to face scan 97 percent of passengers to make sure the leave the country when they’re supposed to.

And I’m guessing the logical next step would be for security cameras within the country to scan for the people who do not leave when they’re supposed to. Which of course means scanning everyone because to catch the lawbreakers you have to scan the law-abiders too.

Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure the government would never dare mandate a national ID card. But then, once the cameras are everywhere — it won’t need to! All we’ll have to do is smile!  The exact same way each time. 🙂

Should police use facial-recognition technology on body cameras?

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