The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a report stating that the biometric technologies used at some U.S. airports to verify the identities of travelers are more than 99% accurate. The report, which was released on January 17, analyzed the face capture and facial recognition tools used by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
The report found that the face capture technology, which takes real-time pictures of travelers, and the facial recognition technology, which compares the images against scanned photo identifications, worked more than 99% of the time. The accuracy rate did not significantly vary based on age, gender, race, or skin tone.
The report also found that the TSA’s CAT-2 systems, which are used at over 80 airports, took an average of 23 seconds to verify a traveler’s identity. The systems did not automatically store data, and photos were deleted after a match had been made.
Despite the high accuracy rate, lawmakers and privacy rights advocates have expressed concerns about the use of government surveillance tools and their impact on Americans’ civil liberties. Researchers have also found that facial recognition tools can produce biased results, with Black individuals misidentified at much higher rates than other ethnicities.
The report also analyzed CBP’s use of biometrics for scanning those entering and leaving the U.S., as well as HSI’s use of the tools to aid in child sexual abuse investigations. The report found that all of the analyzed biometric tools performed extremely well for diverse demographic groups.
The report’s findings were welcomed by TSA and DHS officials, who stressed that the systems do not automatically store data and that any matching issues are remediated by TSA officers. However, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have expressed concerns about TSA’s use of the tools, particularly when it comes to the agency handling travelers’ personal data.
