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The Department of Homeland Security’s top watchdog is investigating the growing use of facial recognition technology in the security screening process at U.S. airports, a Democratic lawmaker announced on Friday.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and a bipartisan group of senators previously sent a letter to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari in November calling for a thorough review of the Transportation Security Administration’s deployment of biometric technologies to verify travelers’ identities “from both an authorities and privacy perspective.”
That request was signed by a total of 12 senators, including seven Democrats and five Republicans.
In a Jan. 29-dated letter shared by Merkley’s office, Cuffari said his office was auditing TSA’s use of biometric tools to determine “the extent to which TSA’s facial recognition and identification technologies enhance security screening to identify persons of interest and authenticate flight traveler information while protecting passenger privacy.”
TSA had deployed facial recognition technology to over 80 airports thus far, with plans to roll out the identity verification tools to more than 400 airports in the coming years. The new screening units, known as CAT-2 systems, take real-time pictures of travelers and then compare the images against their scanned photo identifications.
Some lawmakers and privacy rights advocates have pushed back on TSA’s use of facial recognition, warning about the agency’s collection of Americans’ biometric data and expressing concerns that the adoption and normalization of the technology could set the stage for the deployment of further surveillance tools across the U.S.
“This technology will soon be in use at hundreds of major and mid-size airports without an independent evaluation of the technology’s precision or an audit of whether there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect passenger privacy,” the senators wrote in their letter to Cuffari, adding that its deployment to all U.S. airports would make it “one of the largest federal surveillance databases overnight without authorization from Congress.”
TSA has responded to criticism by noting that its screeners do not automatically store data and that traveler’s photos are immediately deleted after a match has been made. The agency has also noted that the facial recognition screenings are voluntary and that there are signs in airports with the new technology alerting travelers of their right to opt-out of the process.
DHS, which has oversight of TSA, also released an analysis earlier this month which found that the facial recognition tools being used by the agency were more than 99% accurate.
Although travelers who decline using the facial recognition technology can have a TSA agent verify their identities instead, Merkley was previously told he would cause “a significant delay” if he did not use the tool during a flight out of Washington’s Reagan National Airport in July 2023.
While the use of the technology is currently optional, former TSA Administrator David Pekoske said at an event in March 2023 that the agency will likely get to a point where it will require facial recognition “across the board” because of its effectiveness and efficiency.
“Americans don’t want a national surveillance state, but right now, more Americans than ever before are having their faces scanned at the airport without being able to exercise their right to opt-out,” Merkley said in a statement. “I have long sounded the alarm about the TSA’s expanding use of facial recognition because the agency’s stated goal is to mandate this technology for all American air travelers, ending the current opt-out system.”
Merkley previously spearheaded the introduction of bipartisan legislation in November 2023 that would have required TSA to end its use of biometric technologies within three months of the bill’s passage and would have also required the agency to receive congressional approval before deploying the technology in the future.
The watchdog’s announced audit of TSA’s use of facial recognition technology comes after Republican leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee similarly sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office earlier this month that also asked for them to conduct a review of the agency’s use “of biometric identification and AI systems.”
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