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 look nickname instrumentality that would return photos of each azygous personification successful a conveyance astatine a separator crossing, including anyone successful nan backmost seats, and lucifer them to recreation documents, according to a archive posted successful a national registry past week.

The petition for information, aliases RIF, says that CBP already has a look nickname instrumentality that takes a image of a personification astatine a larboard of introduction and compares it to recreation aliases personality documents that personification gives to a separator officer, arsenic good arsenic different photos from those documents already “in authorities holdings.”

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

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

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

Dave Maass, head of investigations astatine nan Electronic Frontier Foundation, received a document from CBP via nationalist grounds petition that reveals nan results of a 152-day trial nan agency conducted connected its larboard of introduction look nickname strategy from precocious 2021 to early 2022. The archive Maass obtained was first reported by The Intercept.

Maass said that what stood retired to him were nan correction rates. Cameras astatine nan Anzalduas separator crossing astatine Mexico’s separator pinch McAllen, Texas, captured photos of everyone successful nan car conscionable 76 percent of nan time, and of those people, conscionable 81 percent met nan “validation requirements” for matching their look pinch their recognition documents.

The existent loop of nan strategy matches a person’s photograph to their recreation documents successful what’s known arsenic one-to-one look recognition. The superior consequence here, Maass says, is nan strategy failing to admit that personification matches their ain documents. This differs from one-to-many look recognition, which constabulary whitethorn usage to place a fishy based connected a surveillance photo, wherever nan superior consequence is personification getting a mendacious affirmative lucifer and being falsely identified arsenic a suspect.

Maass says it’s unclear whether CBP’s correction rates chiefly person to do pinch nan cameras aliases nan matching strategy itself. “We don't cognize what group disparities, gender disparities, etc, travel up pinch these systems,” he says.

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