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, every time. Fuck that
Yes.
Even if it didn’t explicitly stop my biometric data from being taken and transferred to a government database every single time I fly, it would be a vote against the system itself existing. The whole reason they are allowing people to opt out right now is to test how acceptable it is to people, to hopefully make it mandatory given too little pushback from the public.
Opting out doesn’t just protect your biometric data now, it protects everyone in the future from having their biometric data taken from them without a choice if this system is allowed to spread unopposed.
No use for me. DHS and probably every other three letter agency in the US have my prints, name, and picture on file after getting various work visas a while back.
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.
No, it’s absolutely pointless to opt out.
Haven’t flown in years. Didn’t know this was a thing. Creepy.
Yeah it’s weird. I always opt out and it seems to make no difference whatsoever.
I take the photo. My face is in so many gov’t databases from badging at various jobsites over the years, I don’t care if they verify it’s me going somewhere. The itinerary is already highly personal so they know that “the guy with that face” is going somewhere.
Yes very unfortunately this ship sailed long ago, and a tiny fraction of people opting out accomplishes nothing at this point. When the 3D nudity scanners arrived i opted out several times, but not nearly enough other people did, so it was pointless. A single digit percent of people opting out accomplishes nothing, we need to stand together in large numbers to accomplish any change. But for whatever reason the large majority of americans have decided to roll over and let the government take away any of our rights that they want to
I mean, I’ll get buck naked right in the line so the nudie scanners never scared me.
3D nudity scanners? What? What are those and for how long you guys have had them in airports? The most I’ve stepped through were metal detectors, and my luggage through X-ray
No, and it helps tremendously, if you leave and enter the country.
Like privacy wise it sucks but, I was the only one in my family that wasn’t stopped for manual check at customs because I was already in the system
What was that saying?
“Trade privacy for convenience and you end up with neither”?
