DHS Wants Mandatory Facial Recognition

DHS Wants Mandatory Facial Recognition

by Shari Dovale

The Department of Homeland Security wants to make your life easier. Of course it is all about you. They know that passports alone are too complicated and want to change the rules to make facial recognition mandatory when you leave or enter the United States.

Current US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rules state that while US citizens are required to be in possession of a valid U.S. passport, CBP does NOT require them to have their pictures taken.

Travelers who do not wish to participate in this facial comparison process may notify a CBP Officer … in order to seek an alternative means of verifying their identities.

But, in the usual ambush on the people that are not paying attention, DHS has requested a rule change to REQUIRE facial recognition.

DHS is proposing to amend the regulations to provide that all travelers, including U.S. citizens, may be required to be photographed upon entry and/or departure.

RT tells us:

The new rule was rejected by civil liberties groups and privacy advocates, who said it would only further erode Americans’ privacy and subject them to yet another layer of intrusive government surveillance.

“Time and again, the government told the public and members of Congress that US citizens would not be required to submit to this intrusive surveillance technology as a condition of traveling,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy at the American Civil Liberties Union, adding that the rule raises “profound privacy concerns.”

There are further concerns:

The DHS also piqued security concerns last year when it announced it would partner with Amazon for its all-seeing HART system, which will pass highly detailed information on 250 million people to the tech giant for storage.

This change will start with travelers that want to enter or depart from the United States. It appears that they want the rule change in place by July 2020. However, as per normal over-reaching, how long will it be before these rules will apply to state borders as well?

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