Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is all set to use facial recognition technology to track people who are flying up and down the United States. The objective of this activity is to keep North America safe from people who are using US Travel documents in fraudulent ways and entering the country to conduct malevolent activities like Terrorism, illegal migration and such.
Currently, the program is waiting for a nod from the Trump Administration after which it will be implemented across airports of the United States from early next year.
US Customers and Border Protection has been conducting pilot programs in around 9 airports across the country in this regard and has become busy collecting photographs and fingerprints from foreign travelers.
The public has the constitutional right to support or act against this bill till this year-end after which the federal agencies will take a review of the situation and respond to comments to implement the program.
Meanwhile, privacy advocate Jay Stanley, of American Civil Liberties Union said that the new policy of submitting biometric scans while traveling is a privacy invasion and goes against the constitution.
However, a person from White House said that the administration is just trying to weed out criminals and terrorists from entering the country and the facial scan program will help in doing so.
Sources report that the DHS is capturing facial scans of people arriving and departing the US to match their pictures with Visas and Passports.
Plenoptic Cameras developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory(ORNL) in Tennessee are being used for the program and the can capture multiple focal lengths with precision and will also have the ability to capture the IRIS of the subject under extreme and challenging conditions.
