[Jeppspace]

This is creepy...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysouthan/2018/03/09/british-airways-installs-big-brother-style-facial-recognition-gates-at-more-us-airports/

Passport not necessary?

Moreover, this was never announced anywhere in the world that I've heard of, prior to getting the go ahead.

Nothing about it in the news.

When did we vote for this???

[WellRoundedIndividual]

Yes, I saw the same thing. No one gives a crap anymore, unfortunately. It is weird how things have changed dramatically in the past few years. Everyone here in the US (that was sensible) was up in arms against the Patriot Act and all the unwarranted tapping of cellphones, etc. Cheered when Edward Snowden broke the news on NSA spying. Cheered when we were able to stop the one internet act several years ago.

Now, its the complete opposite. What the fuck happened?

[Bastian Baasch]

Yes, I saw the same thing. No one gives a crap anymore, unfortunately. It is weird how things have changed dramatically in the past few years. Everyone here in the US (that was sensible) was up in arms against the Patriot Act and all the unwarranted tapping of cellphones, etc. Cheered when Edward Snowden broke the news on NSA spying. Cheered when we were able to stop the one internet act several years ago.

Now, its the complete opposite. What the fuck happened?

No one gives a crap anymore because we all have the technology. This quote from the book Blown to Bits comes to mind.

Many devices got cheaper, better, and smaller. Once they became useful
consumer goods, we stopped worrying about their uses as surveillance
devices. For example, if the police were the only ones who had cameras in
their cell phones, we would be alarmed. But as long as we have them too, so
we can send our friends funny pictures from parties, we don’t mind so much
that others are taking pictures of us. The social evolution that was supported
by consumer technologies in turn made us more accepting of new enabling
technologies; the social and technological evolutions have proceeded hand in
hand.

(page 21)

[WellRoundedIndividual]

Good point.

[AATW]

How is it creepy?

I flew last night. Landed at Heathrow and instead of having to wait in a long line I just went to one of those machines, put my passport in, the facial recognition software did its thing and off I went. Loads quicker.

"They" knew I was flying anyway because of my passport number. I don't think "they" really care though.

[markjo]

Facial recognition has been in use for a while now in higher end cell phones.  Rumor has it that Apple is looking to put the fingerprint reader back into their next iPhone so that they can use 2 tier biometric authentication (facial and fingerprint) in place of real IDs like passports and such.  How scary might that be?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/09/apple-wants-iphone-to-be-proof-of-identity-and-replace-passports

[WellRoundedIndividual]

I don't think its necessarily that the technology exists and that it is being used. But more of the potential of what it can be used for. Facebook for example is a horrible example of invasion of privacy, profiting off of personal information, etc. Thats not cool in my book. It could get more nefarious than that and probably already is.