Senate bill aims to stop Uncle Sam using facial recognition at airports | Hacker News Reader

Senate bill aims to stop Uncle Sam using facial recognition at airports

theregister.com

98 pointsthunderbong28 comments

In case you (like me) doubted a bill could be so rational, here’s the full text (3 very short pages): https://www.merkley.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/BU...

Looks like it does exactly what’s claimed. Amazing!

Is there support for it in both houses though? They reauthorize the patriot act every time for two decades.

Doubt so. There is a very strong Trump faction now dominating Republican house. Pelosi waning and Diane dead. We now have AOC faction. It is going to be very dysfunctional 2024-2026.

What Diane did was an embarrassing endcap to such a long and distinguished career. She should have retired years ago, not die clinging to power, barely able to function as a Senator.

Patriot Act expired in December 2020. It was not reauthorized by Congress. Trump threatening a veto might have influenced it though.

Just wait. If there is any hope for passage at all, there will be dozens of BS riders and twists added to grab votes before it gets anywhere.

Unfortunately rational narrow bills that benefit ordinary citizens rarely make it out of committee. But it _is_ nice to see the effort.

Remember it. Its the very last time this bill will look anything like this.

Soon it will be filled with horse shit, by clowns, that will make it unpassable.

I don't see this being stopped any time soon. The gain from the government's point of view is too much (you need to capture someone's fingerprints to be able to check them at cbp's desk on arrival) but facial recognition can be captured anytime and cross checked against a large database.

The only way i see facial recognition being stopped if with some mass outcry of average joes (and not just the richard m stallman types) being against it.

> only way i see facial recognition being stopped if with some mass outcry of average joes

Privacy has never been an average-Joe issue. Average Joe isn't invoking the full wrath of the state. That's reserved for minority elite.

Those are also the people privacy protects most socially usefully. Dissidents, unpopular scientists and change agents: this is from whom privacy reforms come because this is who it usefully protects.

Varies by country - there's a lot of pushback against facial recognition in Australia .. at "average joe" stores:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/25/bunnings-...

It may yet return (probably will when the fuss dies down) but Bunnings (Hardware), K-Mart, Woolworths, Coles, Aldi, Target, Big W, Myer, David Jones, Dan Murphy’s, BWS, Vintage Cellars, Liquorland, Rebel and Officeworks in Australia have all pledged "no facials".

I should clarify: the average Joe rarely forms a cohesive block opposed to state surveillance. Quotidien privacy issues are more front and centre.

A comprehensive biometric database has the potential to be both important and deterimental to civilians in the inevitable Minority Report esque future: https://medium.com/@BlackHC/why-autonomous-weapons-are-inevi... / https://archive.is/OIowV

I can somewhat understand when it comes to domestic flights, but international it can be quite useful to alert security on people who are flagged by interpol/europol/whatever.

Japan and Thailand takes face scans and your fingerprints when entering their countries, and I am certain they are not alone.

Regardless of my thoughts on general privacy, the only people I can see being opposed to this are terrorists and money launderers and the politicians who support same as well as unchecked mass immigration and abuse of undocumented workers

The bill only applies to the TSA. Customs and border protection are still allowed to do so.

> still allowed to do so.

They are allowed if you voluntarily consent. When did border and immigration photo opt-out change for Americans?

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/cbp-introdu...

"It is not mandatory for U.S. citizens to have their photo taken."

Do they store those and pass the to some system? Or are they just for verification of biometric passports?

After May 7, 2025, the US will require a Real ID to fly domestically. What's the point of prohibiting facial recognition then?

Is there a facial recognition component to Real ID?

I believe there is when you get the ID. I don’t know about when you use it.

Do you mean there’s a picture?

Real IDs don’t have any other photo requirement than drivers licenses have previously. Their additional validation is in terms of proving residence and identity with additional documents.

I thought those pictures were all being sent to the feds for facial rec processing. Apparently that is not true.

The Real ID Act was passed in 2005. The original deadline was 2008. Then it was 2011, then it was 2013, then it was 2020, then it was 2021. Now it’s 2025? I’ll believe it when I see it!

It's not a constitutionally-protected right to privacy or legislation extending that right to privacy to interactions with private parties, so what's the point?

The reason I contacted both of my state senators is this: We will never get a constitutionally-protected right to privacy. What we will get is federal entities, state entities, international entities and private entities consistently eroding our expectation of privacy every way they can, each for their own reasons. This bill is a small push in the opposite direction, helping to hold the line on where we expect to be surveilled. IOW the only way we will get a right to privacy in the U.S. is piecemeal.

I mean at this point, who needs to talk about deeply theoretical risks.

"Do we want these capabilities if Trump has a 50% chance of being the next president and is on record for installing a fundamentalist dictatorship with persecution for it's opponents?"

The wealthy must want this bill-- since flying is the only way to get to places... they probably don't want to be tracked so easily when they go visit Epstein's island.

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