US Border Agents Are Asking for Help Taking Photos of Everyone Entering the Country by Car

United States Customs and Border Protection is asking tech companies to nonstop pitches for a real-time facial designation instrumentality that would instrumentality photos of each azygous idiosyncratic successful a conveyance astatine a borderline crossing, including anyone successful the backmost seats, and lucifer them to question documents, according to a papers posted successful a national registry past week.

The petition for information, oregon RIF, says that CBP already has a facial designation instrumentality that takes a representation of a idiosyncratic astatine a larboard of introduction and compares it to question oregon individuality documents that idiosyncratic gives to a borderline officer, arsenic good arsenic different photos from those documents already “in authorities holdings.”

“Biometrically confirmed entries into the United States are added to the traveler’s crossing record,” the papers says.

An bureau nether the Department of Homeland Security, CBP says that its facial designation instrumentality “is presently operating successful the air, sea, and onshore pedestrian environments.” The agency’s extremity is to bring it to “the onshore conveyance environment.” According to a leafage connected CBP’s website updated past week, the bureau is presently “testing” however to bash so. The RIF says that these tests show that portion this facial designation instrumentality has “improved,” it isn’t ever capable to get photos of each conveyance passenger, particularly if they’re successful the 2nd oregon 3rd row.

“Human behavior, aggregate rider conveyance rows, and biology obstacles each contiguous challenges unsocial to the conveyance environment,” the papers says. CBP says it wants a backstage vendor to supply it with a instrumentality that would “augment the rider images” and “capture 100% of conveyance passengers.”

Dave Maass, manager of investigations astatine the Electronic Frontier Foundation, received a document from CBP via nationalist grounds petition that reveals the results of a 152 time trial the bureau conducted connected its larboard of introduction facial designation strategy from precocious 2021 to aboriginal 2022. The papers Maass obtained was first reported by The Intercept.

Maas said that what stood retired to him was the mistake rates. Cameras astatine the Anzalduas borderline crossing astatine Mexico’s borderline with McAllen, Texas captured photos of everyone successful the car conscionable 76 percent of the time, and of those people, conscionable 81 percent met the "validation requirements" for matching their look with their recognition documents.

The existent iteration of the strategy matches a person’s photograph to their question documents successful what’s known arsenic one-to-one facial recognition. The superior hazard here, Maas says, is the strategy failing to admit that idiosyncratic matches their ain documents. This differs from one-to-many facial recognition, which constabulary whitethorn usage to place a fishy based connected a surveillance photo, wherever the superior hazard is idiosyncratic getting a mendacious affirmative lucifer and being falsely identified arsenic a suspect.

Maas says it’s unclear whether CBP’s mistake rates chiefly person to bash with the cameras oregon the matching strategy itself. “We don't cognize what radical disparities, sex disparities, etc, travel up with these systems,” helium says.

As reported by The Intercept successful 2024, the DHS's Science and Technology Directorate issued a request for accusation past August that’s akin to the 1 that CBP posted past week. However, the DHS papers presently appears to beryllium unavailable.