The Trump administration is planning to implement a new policy next year that would require all travelers, including US citizens, who enter or leave the US to be photographed. It’s unclear, however, whether the policy will apply to US airports or all US border crossings.
The proposal, which is expected to be issued in July 2020 by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), plans to use face scans to identify and track travelers.
The proposed regulation has already received criticism.
“Travelers, including US citizens, should not have to submit to invasive biometric scans simply as a condition of exercising their constitutional right to travel. The government’s insistence on hurtling forward with a large-scale deployment of this powerful surveillance technology raises profound privacy concerns,” he wrote.
Although the posting fails to specify at which US ports of entry or exit the facial scans will take place, it has been reported that they may be conducted at airports nationwide.
The CBP has faced backlash in recent months, particularly for a data breach in June that leaked the photos of people and cars traveling into and out of the US, TechCrunch reported. The photos were exposed through a “malicious cyberattack” after being transferred to a subcontractor’s network, a CBP spokesperson explained at the time.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
