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, 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 probably low in value.