There’s nothing to worry about approximately.” Every time I hear the one’s words, I begin demanding. This can be because I’ve heard them uttered a little too often by using tech CEOs who are eventually proven to experience all of the honesty of a congressperson’s PR consultant. I consequently nicely up with sympathy towards author MacKenzie Fegan, who persisted a troubling encounter final week with JetBlue’s facial recognition technology, first introduced the last yr.
Naturally, she took to Twitter to check in on her troubles.
She started: “I simply boarded a global @JetBlue flight. Instead of scanning my boarding pass or turning in my passport, I looked right into a digital camera before being allowed down the jet bridge. Did facial popularity update boarding pass unbeknownst to me? Did I consent to this? A funny component, consent. Sometimes, you have no concept you’ve already given it. Sometimes, you have not given it in any respect.
JetBlue, as all true airways do, turned into prepared to provide Twitterized sympathy: “You’re capable of deciding out of this procedure, MacKenzie. Sorry if this made you feel uncomfortable. But after you begin thinking about these items, your thoughts become darker. Fegan wanted to realize how JetBlue knew what she seemed to like.
JetBlue defined: “The information is provided by using the United States Department of Homeland Security from current holdings. Fegan, puzzled using what proper a personal corporation suddenly had her biometric facts.
JetBlue insisted it would not have to get entry to the records. It’s “securely transmitted to the Customs and Border Protection database. Ah, our antique buddy securely. The simplest component you can make certain approximately that concept is that it is not very secure.
Fegan desired to understand how this could have probably befallen so speedy. Could it be that her biometric information was whipped “securely” around government departments so that she would be allowed at the aircraft for only some seconds? JetBlue referred her to a piece of writing on the difficulty, which changed into touch at the satisfied-PR side. Fegan became moved, but no longer positively, by the phrase “there is no pre-
registration required. Others weighed in to give an explanation that her passport facts were already in the database. The handiest distinction right here, stated the smart, is that the machines look at your face and now not your passport image. But wait. Fegan’s response is what happens whilst real human beings start considering the era being foisted upon them. Tech companies are quite exquisite at sliding their modern-day brainwaves into the general public sphere earlier than folks that put into effect them — and people who are pressured to be the objects of them — don’t forget the outcomes.
