Hacker News Reader

Comment by zkms | Hacker News Reader

They already have this at Gatwick, there's security gates/turnstiles where the system doesn't let you pass until it's scanned your face and associated it with your boarding pass, and IIRC they scanned faces again right before boarding.

There's also cameras scattered throughout the airport which have spinning/swirly LED rings around the lens (which look like this: https://www.hrsid.com/assets/images/art/proven-passenger-que...) -- meant to trick you into involuntarily looking at the cameras. It's flagrantly and unashamedly dystopian.

View on HN

Those immigration turnstiles at gatwick are terrifying. I went through it recently and the person beside me put their passport in the wrong way (they put the wrong page in) and an alarm blared out, everyones turnstile locked and armed guards came over to the person only to tell them to put the page in the right way.

Now that is dystopian.

Where is this Heinlein theme park?

Yes, they have these in Shanghai as well and I about shit my pants. When your face lines up correctly, even accidentally, it automatically takes the photo without warning with a loud noise and flashes a big smiley face. It struck me as having an extremely dystopian vibe.

Might as well just link directly to the manufacturer as these ‘features’ are the selling point of this hardware:

http://www.hrsid.com/product-mflow

I get the dystopian flavour of surveillance in general society -- but I don't really get why it's specifically dystopian that you are recorded by a camera while you stand in line to hand over your government issued photo ID to a government agent with pretty broad discretion to make your day pretty awful.

I'm pretty sure those cameras at Gatwick are supposed to track how long the waiting time is, not to "surveil" you in any meaningful sense.

> I'm pretty sure those cameras at Gatwick are supposed to track how long the waiting time is

Then they did a really good job of making me feel like I'm in the opening scene of Half Life 2.

While I agree in general, airports are a bit different. Reading the title of this article I thought, "Good". It's their job to surveil and monitor the airport to the best of technology and law. It is our job to regulate what big brother can and can't do. While security is ridiculously dystopian and over the top, the climate of our world has forced this in airports, so of course they're going to be using all the tech possible. We just need to set the rules for this tech.

> It's their job to surveil and monitor the airport to the best of technology and law. It is our job to regulate what big brother can and can't do. While security is ridiculously dystopian and over the top, the climate of our world has forced this in airports, so of course they're going to be using all the tech possible.

I strongly concur that civil aviation needs to be protected from malfeasance. However, all this fancy iris/face-tracking machinery is only useful for, well, tracking and identifying people and doesn't do anything to prevent people from artfully concealing explosives through security checkpoints. Furthermore, it's possible to hide on-body contraband from full-body imaging devices: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...

Afaict, there's too much development/use of methodology that has secondary uses for mass surveillance (and isn't even good at detecting explosives), and not enough focus on detecting energetic materials. Large-scale automated iris/face detection on noncooperative human targets is a dangerous tool in the wrong hands and it is frankly disingenuous to develop it (and make its use socially-acceptable) in the name of improving civil aviation security.

That's a fair counter. I am assuming the technology already exists in fully functional and efficient form, and that the TSA is just applying it to the airport.

> I don't really get why it's specifically dystopian that you are recorded by a camera while you stand in line to hand over your government issued photo ID to a government agent with pretty broad discretion to make your day pretty awful.

Because automated iris-at-a-distance systems that can track and identify non-cooperative human targets scale a lot differently than tetchy border guards. Pervasive CCTV is one thing if it's mostly not watched (and only used to piece together what happened after incidents), pervasive facial/iris-recognition that is watched by computers 24/7 and tracks every single human's movements is a whole other thing. Also frankly, given you recognise the ability of customs/border/immigration personnel to make your day awful, why do you seem fine giving those people even more power and methods to pervasively surveil and track people?

> I'm pretty sure those cameras at Gatwick are supposed to track how long the waiting time is

Even per publicly-available information, this is flagrantly false. Queue management does not require enrolment of the passenger's face/iris data with their boarding pass, as indeed happens at Gatwick. This is explicitly for tracking passengers through every area of the airport:

http://www.professionalsecurity.co.uk/news/press-releases/mf...

http://www.planetbiometrics.com/article-details/i/1850/desc/...

A few years ago I experienced something similar at Heathrow. According to Heathrow's website[1] it's because:

    airports that operate common departure lounges[2] must comply with
    UK Border Force conditions that are necessary to prevent any 
    circumvention of UK immigration controls. 

    This includes a requirement to capture a facial biometric for each 
    domestic passenger on entry and exit of a departure lounge in order
    to verify their identity.

[1] http://www.heathrow.com/departures/security-and-baggage/flyi...

[2] AIUI what they mean by "common departure lounge" is a lounge accessible to international and domestic passengers without having to pass fully through to arrivals and re-checking in on another flight, but I could be wrong.

The UK have gone bonkers with mass surveillance. Yesterday, I stumbled upon a TV series called "Motorway Cops". The whole point of the series was to showcase all the neat mass surveillance gadgets that even low level police officers have access too.

And they will continue to be baffled as to why violent crime continues to rise in incidence and severity. The fact there has never been a peaceful, stable, happy police state in history doesn't seem to be a hint to frightfully many people.

When arriving, if you have an EU passport you don't even need to go through human immigration/customs. They have a turnstile which scans your passport, then a camera which compares it to your face before letting you through.

Which is absolutely awesome since it goes very fast to go through the checks.

I'd argue the spinner is a nice addition, explicitly reminding people are being filmed and to stop them from doing stupid shit while entering the country.

Stupid shit like what?

wanting to enter that type of country

Like pranking your bro’s about bombs and drugs you are bringing because you’ve binge drunk for last 15 hours while locked up in ergonomically impossible position.

Honestly, the ‘forces you to look into camera with a straight face’ is awful idea. Many countries already have cams to scan you when talking with immigration officer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com