Homeland Security Says Americans Who Don’t Want Faces Scanned on International Flights “Shouldn’t Travel”
July 15th, 2017Via: ZDnet:
Homeland Security’s advice for the millions of Americans traveling overseas who don’t want to end up in its facial biometric database is simply not to travel.
That’s according to the agency’s own assessment document published earlier this year of a new so-called traveler verification project to “capture facial images of travelers” leaving the US.
The effort aims to help Customs and Border Protection (CBP) track non-immigrant foreigners and those who overstay their visas. To date, foreigners arriving in the US will have their photo and fingerprints recorded at the border, but Americans are exempt from turning over their biometrics.
But now the agency wants to scan the faces when anyone — including Americans — leaves the US.
“The only way for an individual to ensure he or she is not subject to collection of biometric information when traveling internationally is to refrain from traveling,” says the document.
