TSA considering outsourcing its 'touchless' biometric digital ID system to Big Tech
No physical ID required at 14 U.S. airports and the program is now being handed off to private contractors
Biometric Update has a new article out about how U.S. airports are upgrading to a fully digital and biometric system for identifying and screening passengers. And TSA is turning to Big Tech for expertise on how to convert over to the new system.
The tech website reports that:
“Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is moving to fuse its touchless identity experiments with a broader shift toward privatized, technology-heavy airport screening. The effort merges cutting-edge biometric screening trials with a reimagining of how security at U.S. airports is staffed and managed.”
In July, TSA issued a Request for Information under its Screening Partnership Program (SPP) seeking input from private-sector companies capable of delivering fully integrated, turnkey biometrics and digital ID screening solutions.
The federal “partners” program allows airports to hire private companies to perform security screening under TSA oversight.
It also means that your personal biometric data will end up in the hands of multiple federal contractors, along with the government.
Until now, Biometric Update notes that the Screening Partnership Program has been a niche option used by a handful of small- to medium-sized airports to outsource screening personnel while following the same federal protocols as TSA-run checkpoints.
But the new TSA proposal envisions private-sector partners supplying not just personnel, but integrating and operating a full suite of advanced biometric security technologies in unified, turnkey screening lanes.
The website writes:
“This vision dovetails with TSA’s ongoing PreCheck Touchless ID pilot, a program designed to replace traditional ID checks with biometric facial recognition for eligible travelers.”
Now in operation at 14 U.S. airports, the program partners with Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines.
In July, the article notes that Denver International Airport became the latest to add dedicated touchless lanes. TSA says in an explanatory video on its website that, “No need to show physical ID or a boarding pass. Just your face gets you through.”
Airports currently offering Touchless ID lanes include major hubs such as Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Newark, New York LaGuardia, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Reagan Washington National.
TSA says the live image captured at the checkpoint is compared to government-held photos from passports, Global Entry, or visas, using Customs and Border Protection’s Traveler Verification Service. “Images are not used for law enforcement, surveillance, nor shared with other entities,” TSA states, and they are “deleted within 24 hours of your scheduled flight departure.”
And if you believe that, you probably believed that mRNA injections were “safe and effective.”
Now you know why I no longer fly. It’s become such an Orwellian, invasive experience that you literally feel violated every time you get through security. Most Americans don’t share my desire to live free and they line up for these digitized biometric identifiers, face scans, iris scans, you name it. The airports have become expert at making sure those who “opt in” to these programs get through security faster and with less hassles.
It’s the perfect Hegelian dialectic at work here: Since 9/11 we’ve seen airport security become more intense and invasive, so now they offer you an opportunity to avoid all that and sail through to your flight hassle-free if only you will sign over all your physical/biological data and give them license to use it as they see fit.
And of course there’s no oversight for any of this, so why wouldn’t they lie about what they do with our data? Congress shows zero interest in protecting the personal data of American citizens, and the Trump White House is equally eager to run headlong into the technocratic surveillance state, an increasingly dark place where nobody is watching the watchers.
Airports are just one facet of the beast system, the infrastructure for which is being constructed at warp speed, in the wide open, with nary a peep from anyone in MAGA or any other movement. If you have your eyes on a man, or a human movement, and think they’re going to save you, you will be sorely disappointed.
I thought I was the only one I know who's taken such a tough stance, i.e., no flying, no real ID, etc. etc. Most people aren't holding out...which is why the system is unfolding so rapidly. Look at how easily AI captured the public...even into the now acknowledged "delusional" states. I'm agog that no one in national government is the least concerned with prioritizing the citizens' right to privacy and formally announcing and delineating what constitutes basic human rights under a digitalized society.
It doesn't make any difference if your President, Representative or Senators are Democrats or Republicans, they don't give a rat's rump about any of us. The electoral system is rigged, in many, if not most, cases during the primary elections to deliver specific individuals into (s)elective office.
Partisans in both political parties don't realize that anything "good" all but a very few politicians do is to keep us believing in the rigged system. They are allowed to do just enough "good" to distract us from what they are doing to us, knowingly, and with malice aforethought.
TEPTB (The Evil Predators That Be) who control "The System" and the politicians are years, even decades, ahead of us. We have only one Savior! Why do people forsake our one, true Savior for a freaking politician, or a bevy of politicians?