Smile at the Mexico border: You could be part of pilot
Program testing if facial recognition can determine if those who enter U.S. also exit
MISSION — Facial recognition technology that is fast becoming a means to access iPhones, board international flights and even order food may now address a post-9/11 mandate to make sure visitors aren’t overstaying their visas.
Competing vendors are testing cameras that capture travelers’ images through windshields at the Anzalduas International Bridge in Mission as part of a yearlong trial announced in August. A similar facial comparison system for pedestrians crossing through the San Luis, Ariz., port of entry was announced in September.
“Basically, it’s a nonobtrusive way to make sure that the person that comes in goes back out,” said David Gonzalez, port director for the Hidalgo, Pharr and Anzalduas bridges on the TexasMexico border.
On a misty Friday afternoon in October, lines only a few cars deep moved steadily through the northbound and southbound lanes. Billboards advised motorists they could opt out of the voluntary test program by choosing certain lanes, but drivers seemed more concerned with picking the lane with the shortest queue.
There was a need to stop to pose for the cameras to ensure images had adequately been captured; the technology is said to be able to photograph all passengers and through window tints. The photographs are to be destroyed at the end of the test period.
Whether hats, sunglasses or heavy makeup, among other things, obscure the images is part of the test, Gonzalez explained, chuckling at a boy holding up a poodle against a window.
“We don’t know if the position of the dog actually blocks the face of the child, little things like that,” he said. “That’s what this is all about: that learning phase to find out if we’re not capturing the facial image, why? And then how can they improve on that?”
Customs and Border Protection for years has experimented with biometric technologies, such as fingerprinting in 2004 and iris scans in 2010.
But while Congress called for systems to be in place for exit checks by the end of 2004, the volume of traffic at land crossings made it impossible to introduce new layers of screening without causing southbound backlogs.
The business community on the U.S. side of the border fought vigorously against outbound checks, saying it would crush commerce and tourism. One argument was that it would crack down on what had been a lightly enforced 72-hour limit for Mexican visitors using border crossing cards, or laser visas, to shop at outlet malls or vacation on South Padre Island.
“You can use the laser visa to enter, but if you have to show it upon exit to determine if you overstayed the 72-hour time frame, we just don’t have personnel,” said Gerald Schwebel, executive vice president of Laredo-based IBC Bank. “You will create gridlock.”
Monica Weisberg-Stewart of the Texas Border Coalition said most border bridges were too antiquated to handle new technology.
“Technology is always wonderful, but I always say don’t put the cart before the horse like we have done with so many programs,” she said.
Gonzalez, the port director, said the beauty of the program is that it’s seamless and does not slow bridge traffic. Asked about privacy concerns and the fear of “Big Brother,” he said people have largely moved past that.
“The public has pretty much given that up to almost any other program,” he said. “You’re giving it up to your iPhone. I think there are now some banking systems that are doing video face capturing. … I mean, they’re tracking you already right now at the grocery store to find out how much time you spend in there, what aisles you’re going down, where your eyes follow. I’ve seen all that technology.”
Customs and Border Protection already has partnered with airlines on facial recognition systems for some noteworthy results, snagging foreigners with fraudulent passports, previous deportation orders and multiple identities.
But privacy advocates say that airports are nothing like land ports and that exit checks were never meant to put identities of U.S. citizens into a vast biometric database. There’s also evidence that the technology is less effective with people who have darker complexions.
Data breaches at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and U.S. Office of Personnel Management show that the government has a poor record of safeguarding privacy, said Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney with the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“We don’t know that’s what’s happening with the data,” Lynch said. “The government is also partnering with private companies. We don’t know what the companies are doing with the data.”
Privacy rights groups point to China, which has used facial recognition to publicly shame jaywalkers and limit toilet paper consumption at public restrooms.
The Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center has urged the federal government to suspend facial recognition at land ports until the benefits are weighed against the 10-year, $1 billion investment and there is public discussion of potential privacy and civil liberties risks.
There’s already been “mission creep” in that photographs taken for the State Department to issue passports are now being used on a wider level, said Jeramie Scott, the center’s national security counsel.
“That wasn’t a choice that was given to make,” Scott said. “I didn’t get to weigh the options between the privacy risk of the government having my image in a massive facial recognition database versus having control over my identity document.
“The DHS has touted the ease in which facial recognition can be expanded, and that is, in part, precisely the problem. It is so easy to expand the use of surveillance technology to other areas and to a mass scale.”