(video; slides) [Facial recognition at each step in airline passenger processing. Slide from presentation by Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd. to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Traveler Identitification Program symposium, October 2018] Today, the day before Thanksgiving, will probably be the busiest day for air travel in the USA since the outbreak of the COVID-19 […]
The triennial general assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is underway in Montreal for its first session since the outbreak of COVID-19, with speakers at its opening plenary last week including US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. It’s been many years since the US delegation to an ICAO meeting has included a Cabinet […]
The highest court of the European Union ruled today that an EU mandate for dragnet surveillance of travelers through government access to airline reservations might be permissible under EU law — but only under conditions that governments of EU member countries, and the US government, may be unable or unwilling to meet. In 2016, the […]
[“Secure Flight” process flow used by the TSA for airline passengers and being tested on Amtrak passengers. The red box at right center is the “black box” for algorithmic profiling, blacklist/blocklist enforcement, and fly/no-fly decision making.] Amtrak has reportedly given the Transportation Security Administration several months of archives of Amtrak passenger reservations and frequent rider […]
Two recent court cases, and follow-up articles and interviews with the plaintiffs and their lawyers, show how the highest priority for the U.S. government with respect to no-fly orders continues to be preventing judicial review of these government decisions, not preventing terrorism. When an airline requests permission to allow an individual to board a flight, […]
Today the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a competition between hardware and software vendors to demonstrate the facial-recognition systems that are most useful for surveillance and other malign uses: cameras or other sensors and facial and/or other biometric matching algorithms that can identity travelers (or other people in public places) even if they […]
According to an article in POLITICO based on interviews with unnamed “law enforcement officials,” the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering expanded use of airline reservation data to target travelers for more intrusive searches: The department could begin analyzing the travel patterns of suspected domestic extremists, monitor flights they book on short notice […]
[Flowchart of “goTravel” software package developed by the government of the Netherlands and offered to U.N. members through the Countering Terrorist Travel Programme of the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT)] National governments of all members of the United Nations are being pressured to implement new U.N. mandates for surveillance, profiling, and control of air travelers. […]
[“How do you get on the no-fly list?” Larger image; PDF with legend.] In the aftermath of the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, there’s been a confused cacophony of calls to “put the rioters on the no-fly list.” At the same time, there have been equally confusing claims and denials that some people […]
While we were watching US election returns, our neighbors to the north were adopting new travel regulations that incorporate some of the worst aspects of the US system of surveillance and control of air travel, and in some respects go even further in the wrong direction. Canadian authorities don’t generally want to be seen as […]