Orwellian? Federal officials roll out airport facial recognition technology with promise of 'strengthening privacy'
Do it for your convenience (and privacy)
In what some might consider Orwellian doublespeak, federal officials are rolling out facial recognition technology at airports with a claim that they are “strengthening privacy.” The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), an agency of the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS), posted a “Facial Recognition Technology” Fact Sheet using that term as it announced the expansion of its new screening technology from nearly 30 airports to more than 400:
(TSA) strives to enhance security effectiveness and improve operational efficiency, while creating an enhanced traveler experience and strengthening privacy . . .
The agency is using second-generation Credential Authentication Technology (CAT-2) scanners as travelers enter the screening process . . .The CAT-2 units are currently deployed at nearly 30 airports nationwide, and will expand to the more than 400 federalized airports over the coming years . . . [Emphases added.]
The Fact Sheet repeatedly refered to "privacy" in a positive light while using additional terms like enhancement, convenience, and respect:
TSA introduced facial recognition technology into the screening process at select airports. The facial recognition technology represents a significant security enhancement and improves traveler convenience . . .
All digital IDs eligible for use at select TSA checkpoints follow the current, international open standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization and provide enhanced security and privacy by design.
TSA policy requires that TSOs show each traveler respect and ensure their privacy is protected. [Emphases added.]
App exempts illegal aliens
Some have taken to X to point out that if the technology was truly for the security of passengers there would be no exceptions, particularly not for those who break the law entering the U.S. and refuse to identify themselves.
The NYPost publicized the TSA sign, referred to in the above post, adding that almost half a million illegal aliens can use a government app allowing them to fly without any picture at all and they can even refuse a request that they take a picture on the spot:
IF you’re rushing to the airport and forget your photo ID, good luck being allowed on the plane. But many migrants without “an acceptable form of identification,” according to airport signs, don’t need a photo. They get special treatment.
Migrants who have entered the country using President Biden’s new CBP (Customs and Border Protection) One app — at least 422,000 — can fly domestically without photo ID.
A sign posted in Miami International Airport tells migrants, “1. Notify the TSA officer that you are a migrant. 2. The TSA officer will take a photo (optional). 3. If requested, provide your alien identification number or biographic information.”
Taking a photo would allow the Transportation Security Administration officer to confirm the person boarding matches the person pictured in the CBP app. But the airport sign repeats, “Photo capture is voluntary.” The migrant trying to board could be anybody. [Emphases added.]
Doublespeak
All this raises the question of whether the government's description of its facial recognition technology as convenient and ensuring privacy is political doublespeak. Helpful Professor defines that term while also providing the background to its entry into the English language:
The term “doublespeak” derives from two concepts in George Orwell’s famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four … The terms “doublethink” and “Newspeak” frequently occur in the novel, but “doublespeak” does not . . .
Doublespeak is the language that deliberately distorts, disguises, obscures, hides, or reverses the meaning of words.
It may also refer to intentional ambiguity or inversion of meanings. In the latter case, doublespeak is used to hide the truth or distort it.
Here’s how George Orwell describes political speech in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms…” [Emphasis added.]
William Lutz was the communications consultant who convinced President George Bush in 2002 to abandon the phrase global warming “in favour of ‘climate change’" in a marketing ploy. Lutz described "doublespeak" in more detail:
“Doublespeak is language that pretends to communicate but really doesn’t. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning.
It is language that conceals or prevents thought; rather than extending thought, doublespeak limits it…Basic to doublespeak is incongruity, the incongruity between what is said or left unsaid, and what really is."
The power of doublespeak is that it allows the speaker to disavow or deny that a concept has negative traits or connotations. [Emphases added.]
Trust them anyway?
The TSA's Fact Sheet notifies passengers that they may opt out of passing through the facial recognition station without any consequences:
Travelers who do not wish to participate in the facial recognition technology process may decline the optional photo in favor of an alternative identity verification process, which does not use facial recognition technology to verify their identity. This action will not take longer and passengers will not lose their place in line for security screening. [Emphasis added.]
One concern not addressed is whether TSA will keep a list of those opting out of facial recognition and, if so, how that listing will be used in the future. TSA does say that the photos taken with facial recognition technology are not normally stored, but then lists an exception:
Photos are not stored or saved after a positive ID match has been made, except in a limited testing environment for evaluation of the effectiveness of the technology.
Could be worse
The TSA adds that facial recognition technology is not used for general surveillance.
Biometrics are not used for surveillance – Facial recognition technology is solely used to automate the current manual ID checking process and will not be used for surveillance or any law enforcement purpose.
Nextgov/FCW notes that this "one-to-one verification" is less of a threat to privacy than a system that uses a database to flag a person to be prevented from traveling.
The agency’s CAT-2 units employ so-called one-to-one verification, where photos are generally compared against a government-issued identification, such as a driver’s license or passport, and then deleted from the scanner. This is often considered less privacy-invasive than so-called one-to-many matching, where a photo is compared against a larger database compiled of known individuals’ images to determine if there is a match. [Emphases added.]
In this sense, travelers can be expected to accept this “less privacy-invasive” screening procedure as it doesn't sound so bad compared to China's “one-to-many matching.”
Creeping control?
The question remains, though: Once facial recognition becomes commonplace, at airports and possibly at malls, sporting events, concerts, public squares, office buildings, and hotels, how likely is it that "one-to-many matching" will not be introduced? And if it is, will it be for your “convenience" and even “strengthened privacy?” Or perhaps an even stricter version, modeled after China's facial recognition screening, for your "enhanced security" following a terror attack?
And how many would oppose the surveillance as creeping totalitarianism and, instead of the government's freedom-limiting solution, demand that federal officials properly secure the border and cease providing foreign aid that winds up in the hands of terrorists?
Related articles:
- Cars to be programmed to limit speed if California bill becomes law
- Update: FCC approves 'Orwellian equity plan to control Internet' in narrow 3-2 vote
- Google exploits immunity to attack AFLDS
- AwakenWithJP shadow banned
- What is Elon Musk thinking?
- 'Law professor': First Amendment protects government's free speech, not yours
- FCC to vote today on 'sweeping, unprecedented' expansion of internet control under guise of ‘inclusion’
