-Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Once again, if you're just joining us in the boarding area
for flight 751 to Cancún, we will begin boarding shortly.
We'll also be using a new self-boarding process today,
which takes a quick face scan
and securely matches it to your passport photo.
-I'm at New York City's John F.
Kennedy Airport, where JetBlue has put in place an eGate.
It uses facial-recognition technology
to verify international travellers
before they board the plane.
Facial recognition is igniting debate all over the country,
but it's already here at the airport --
at check-in, bad drop, and boarding.
Atlanta's airport as an entire biometric terminal.
But is the technology ready?
And are our laws ready?
And are we ready for its implications?
You'd think this is all about security, right?
Actually, no.
It's not quite that simple.
Let's rewind.
When you step into the eGate, it takes a picture --
sometimes two or three if it didn't get a good one.
The pictures are sent to customs and border protection --
the immigration people --
to be matched against a gallery of everyone on your flight.
Everyone on that list has already been approved to fly.
The face check is about speeding up boarding.
Will it recognize you?
Not always.
On two JetBlue flights I observed,
the tech failed for up to 15% of the passengers.
You won't miss your flight if the computer
doesn't recognize you.
You just need your passport checked manually.
JetBlue says a non-match can happen for a lot of reasons.
Maybe there wasn't an image for that person on file,
or maybe they have a beard now
when they didn't in their passport photo.
What's odd is the eGate let me through even
while I was wearing sunglasses.
But, unfortunately, studies have shown
facial-recognition technology
does not work as well on people of color and women.
Okay, back to boarding, there's another big question --
what photo are they matching me with?
Customs compared the photo JetBlue took of me
to one from the State Department.
It's my passport shot.
The new photo JetBlue takes gets deleted after 12 hours.
If you're a US citizen.
Why does the government even want to do this?
After 9/11, Congress mandated biometric checks
on people entering and exiting the country
but only for foreigners, not Americans.
What has civil libertarians worried
is that the eGate scans everyone,
including US citizens.
Airports are already places you have to present ID
to a human, but having a computer
do that automatically opens the potential for abuse
the Constitution is supposed to protect --
Americans can't be surveilled
unless they're suspected of crimes.
Is all this worth it?
How big is the problem that facial recognition
at the gate is really solving?
It's not really about security.
As you know, security is already tight at the airport.
Customs says this is really about catching people
who overstay their visa by making sure the person
leaving the country is actually the visa holder,
and they say computers do this job much better than humans.
But in 2018, only about 1% of visa holders overstayed.
The bigger question is what this could be opening doors to.
Airports already have big plans for your face.
JetBlue will soon start using facial recognition
when you drop off your bag,
and TSA would like to start using faces
on domestic flights, too.
Remember, with facial recognition,
there always has to be another photo to match you with,
and, today, only the FBI has that kind of database.
Or airlines could just start making face databases
themselves, kind of like Facebook.
Okay, if you didn't like what you just saw,
what are your options?
You can opt out if you're a US citizen.
It just means you'll have your documents checked manually.
But what about all the facial recognition that's on its way?
What's likely to happen is facial
ID becomes too convenient to avoid.
Are you gonna want to opt out at check-in,
at baggage drop, at security checkpoints,
at the airport lounge, and at the gate?
That's a lot of opting out.
When that day comes, what will we have given up
just to move a little faster through the airport?
We only get one face each.
Are we doing enough to protect it?