Testing Of Face Scanning At O'Hare Airport

[aap519]

Starting this month, passengers on some international flights from O'Hare airport have been getting their pictures taken before boarding as part of a new U.S. security program that utilizes facial-recognition technology......

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-face-scans-ohare-0720-20170719-story.htmlhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-face-scans-ohare-0720-20170719-story.html

 

[Pauline]

We travel on UK passports and go through a special line for electronic passports where you put your passport on a reader and it scans your photo, then compares to the photo it takes of you standing there. Very creepy. Do they have that with US Passports now? This is different from what you are talking about because it is not accessing a database of information - or at least I don't think it is.

 

[aap519]

Our passports are scanned (at least at O'Hare airport) then the TSA agent looks at you and the picture on your passport. As far as I can tell.

This new face scanning uses a biometric measurement.

I got involved with the installation of biometric hand reader back in the mid 90's. There was a warehouse that had card access, but the card they used for the card access system was an employee discount card with a mag strip, that was issued to the employee and their spouse. They had an incident where a spouse used the their discount card to gain access to the warehouse and proceeded to beat up their spouse.

There were a lot of issues with biometric hand readers back then. If a person had bad arthritis and couldn't lay their hand flat, their biometric measurement would vary every time and they would be denied entry. If a person added or subtracted rings, they would be denied entry. If a person had nail extensions put on or taken off they would be denied entry, along with metallic nail polish messing up the measurement. A small hand and a bracelet messing up the measurement, or a person who gains water weight and gets some hand swelling.

After I completed the warehouse installation, the manufacturer told me they were going to install the biometric hard readers at the Olympic Village in Atlanta for the 1996 Summer Olympics, and electrical contractors in Atlanta were looking for experienced installers. I declined because they were such a headache.

 

[DDTraveler]

We travel on UK passports and go through a special line for electronic passports where you put your passport on a reader and it scans your photo, then compares to the photo it takes of you standing there. Very creepy. Do they have that with US Passports now? This is different from what you are talking about because it is not accessing a database of information - or at least I don't think it is.

Yes, using Global Entry at San Francisco airport, our pictures are scanned at the customs kiosk, then the TSA agent checks the photo against the passport and you when leaving.

This last time through my husband was befuddled using the kiosk (long flight), and so I helped him out. The picture ended up being half of my head. The TSA agent accepted it anyway and waved us through.

 

[Andrew]

I presume that these agents are CBP (Customs and Border Protection, screening entries to the U.S.), rather than TSA, which does security screening for people preparing to board flights.

Edit: As I look more closely, I see that the original story is about screenings before departing international flights, but it is still a CBP operation.