FC: Wendy Leibowitz: What's the problem with facecams in airports?

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Politech facecam archive:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=facecam

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Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 17:13:19 -0500
Subject: Re: FC: ACLU feature on facecams in airports, DOD "Ferret" system
From: "Wendy Leibowitz" <wendytech@earthlink.net>
To: declan@well.com

The technology doesn't work, but isn't it less intrusive than a body search,
or almost any other search to which we submit at borders and airports? There
is a long line of cases about how intrusive border/airport searches must be,
and the general consensus of the courts is: very. Remember we're also
looking for drugs, so the guards can strip-search you and even hold you for
hours or days (I believe) if they think you've swallowed drugs (you've got
to go to the bathroom eventually).
All in all, I don't understand the problem with face-cams at borders or
airports. It affects only those whose pictures already appear in a database,
and so the issue should be--who's in the database, not whether or not we use
this unobtrusive technology.

Wendy R. Leibowitz
Legal Technology Columnist
Editor, E-Filing Report
1140 23rd St. NW
Washington, DC 20037
http://www.wendytech.com

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Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 16:45:03 -0500
From: Barry Steinhardt <BSteinhardt@aclu.org>
Subject: Re: California's Oakland airport will use face-recognition software
To: declan@well.com

Declan,

The news account of Oakland Airport's installation of Face Recognition
Technology is not accurate in, at least one, respect. This is not the first
installation at an airport. It has already been installed at the Fresno
Airport and unlike Oakland, where the use will be limited to persons who
have been arrested, the Face Recogntion system, which the Defense Department
actually dubbed "Ferret", is or will be used on all passengers.

Face recogntion will also be installed on a trial basis at Boston Logan and
a full scale basis at Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island.

Barry Steinhardt
ACLU

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From: "Richard M. Smith" <rms@computerbytesman.com>
To: <declan@well.com>
Subject: RE: California's Oakland airport will use face-recognition software
Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2001 17:09:54 -0500
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20011103133326.00a89830@mail.well.com>

This particular face scanning system at the Oakland Airport sounds like
it is going to be used to round up the "usual suspects" rather than to
grab real terrorists:

    http://biz.yahoo.com/cnw/011017/face_recognition_nab_1.html

    Imagis Technologies and Oakland (Calif.) Police Department
    Extend Biometric Facial Recognition Technology to Oakland
    International Airport

    "The installation at Oakland International is part of a
    US$2.65 million contract with Alameda County Sheriff's Department
    to provide a completely integrated law enforcement solution,
    including Imagis' ID-2000 and CABS Computerized Arrest and
    Booking System technology for common access to centralized images
    for arrestee verification, identification and processing. Users will
    use Imagis technology to track and identify known recidivists in
    the county-wide image database in an effort to fight crime and
    terrorism.

Richard Smith

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