The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the US Department of Homeland Security has initiated an audit on facial recognition at airports.
The audit, titled Transportation Security Administration’s Modernization of Identity Authentication and Biometric Technology to Enhance Passenger Screening at US Airports, will 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.
The audit is in response to a letter sent to OIG by a group of senators in November 2024. The letter requested an investigation of the use of facial recognition technology for passenger verification from both an authorities and privacy perspective. The letter claims that it is “confusing and intimidating to opt out of TSA’s facial recognition scan”.
Oregon’s US Senator Jeff Merkley, who led the bipartisan group of senators in the November letter, has welcomed OIG’s commitment to carry out this audit. “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 US air travelers, ending the current opt-out system,” he said.
The group of senators is calling for OIG to address a number of parameters in its audit, including the number of times facial recognition technology has prevented known terrorists or other individuals on the no-fly list from boarding an airplane, whether the use of this technology would result in or enable TSA workforce reductions or reallocations, cybersecurity protections, errors across demographic groups and data storage.
Read updates about TSA’s roll-out of credential authentication technology here