SFO evades criticism of its role in immigration enforcement
[Excerpt from illegal contract awarded by SFO to SITA describes facial recognition hardware, software, and services paid for by the City and County of San Francisco, deployed by SITA on City and County property at SFO, and used to collect and transit mug shots of passengers and “permission to board” messages between airlines, the airport, and CBP/DHS, for purposes including immigration enforcement.]
Another 35 people sent written comments to the Airport Commission on the same subject.
Many of the commenters, who included including supporters of Indivisible SF, Bay Resistance, and the Identity Project, among others, explicitly endorsed the comments of the Identity Project and our specific requests for action by the Airport Commission.
The Airport Commissioners neither discussed nor responded to any of our criticism. But the Director of SFO, Mike Nakornket, opened the meeting by trying to preemptively deflect our criticism with a mix of false, untested, inadequate, and unresponsive claims about the city’s actions and legal authority as the owner, landlord, and operator of the airport.
False: Airport Director Nakornket claimed that, “SFO is not involved in the sharing of passenger information for immigration enforcement purposes, which we understand occurs on a federal level between DHS agencies.”
But the Airport Director should know that this isn’t true.