![\"\"](\"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SFO-SITA-contract-50387.png\")
<\/a>[Excerpt from illegal contract<\/a> 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.]<\/em><\/p><\/div>At the San Francisco Airport Commission meeting<\/a> on August 15th, a dozen members of the public (video<\/a>, Mission Local<\/a>, SF Public Press<\/a>) called on the Airport Commission to comply with San Francisco’s “Sanctuary City” ordinance<\/a>, which prohibits use of S.F. City and County resources — including airport property and funds — for immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n Another 35 people sent written comments to the Airport Commission on the same subject.<\/p>\n Many of the commenters, who included including supporters of Indivisible SF<\/a>, Bay Resistance, and the Identity Project, among others, explicitly endorsed the comments of the Identity Project and our specific requests for action<\/a> by the Airport Commission.<\/p>\n The Airport Commissioners neither discussed nor responded to any of our criticism. But the Director of SFO, Mike Nakornket<\/a>, opened the meeting by trying to preemptively deflect our criticism with a mix of false, untested, inadequate, and unresponsive<\/strong> claims about the city’s actions and legal authority as the owner, landlord, and operator of the airport.<\/p>\n False:<\/strong> Airport Director Nakornket\u00a0 claimed that, “SFO is not involved in the sharing of passenger information for immigration enforcement\u00a0 purposes, which we understand occurs on a federal level between DHS agencies.”<\/p>\n But the Airport Director should know that this isn’t true.<\/p>\n As was confirmed by documents<\/a> provided to us earlier by Airport Commission staff in response to our request for public records, and as we noted in the written comments<\/a> we submitted before the Airport Commission meeting, passenger information including facial images is collected and shared for immigration enforcement purposes through\u00a0 a network of cameras and other hardware and software paid for by the City as the airport operator:<\/p>\n Collection and transmission by SFO of reservation information which is then used or passed on to ICE to use for immigration enforcement falls squarely within the provision of the Sanctuary City Ordinance<\/a> which forbids SFO to \u201cuse any City funds or resources to \u2026 gather or disseminate \u2026 any \u2026 such personal information\u2026 unless such assistance is required by Federal or State statute, regulation, or court decision\u201d.<\/p>\n Regardless of the validity of the untested demands for airlines to collect this information and pass it on to the TSA or CBP for use in immigration enforcement among other purposes, no law or regulation even purports to place any obligation whatsoever on an airport operator to assist or pay for this information collection and transmission. SFO has no obligation to collaborate in this passenger surveillance and control scheme.<\/p>\n But the Airport Commission has approved contracts<\/a> between the City and County and SITA Information Networking Computing USA Inc. pursuant to which SFO is spending approximately $2 million a year for a \u201cShared Use Passenger Processing System<\/a>\u201d installed at SFO and made available to airline tenants. This system includes kiosks and equipment at check-in stations and gates through which passenger information is collected and passed on to CBP for purposes including immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n These contracts are in flagrant violation of the Sanctuary City Ordinance.<\/p>\n In 2020, SFO added<\/a> facial recognition cameras<\/a>, software, and connectivity to collect mug shots of passengers and transmit them to the CBP \u201cTraveler Verification [Service]<\/a>\u201d to the services paid for by SFO and provided by SITA under these contracts.<\/p>\n No law or regulation requires an airport to collect or transmit mug shots of airline passengers to CBP, for immigration enforcement or any other purposes.<\/p>\n In addition, these facial recognition systems are used at SFO in a manner that would be contrary to Federal law even if they were paid for and operated by airlines.<\/p>\n Years after these facial recognition systems were deployed at SFO and other airports, TSA and CBP still haven\u2019t promulgated the notices or obtained the approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) required by the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. \u00a7 552a, and the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. \u00a7 3501 et seq.<\/p>\n The lack of proper notice is compounded by CBP\u2019s failure to comply with the requirement of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. \u00a7552a(e)(2), \u201cEach agency that maintains a system of records shall \u2013… collect information to the greatest extent practicable directly from the subject individual when the information may result in adverse determinations about an individual\u2019s rights, benefits, and privileges under Federal programs.\u201d<\/p>\n If CBP wants to take mug shots of travelers and\u00a0 transmit them to its central facial recognition system for immigration enforcement or any other purpose, it can \u2013 and it must, pursuant to the Privacy Act \u2013 pay its own staff to do so, using their own equipment.<\/p>\n And pursuant to the Sanctuary City Ordinance, SFO may not pay \u2013 as it is now doing \u2013 to provide equipment or connectivity for this immigration enforcement activity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n To comply with the Sanctuary City Ordinance, SFO must cancel this contract with SITA.<\/p>\n Untested:<\/strong> According to Airport Director Nakornket:<\/p>\n While local municipalities typically own physical airport properties, federal agencies like the Department of\u00a0 Homeland Security (DHS) have extensive regulatory authority over US airports. For the DHS specifically, this federal jurisdiction governs security procedures, passenger screening, customs and immigration enforcement. As a result of this federal regulation, the City and County of San Francisco, and its Airport Commission, do not have the authority to regulate such activities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Notably, despite this conclusionary claim, the Airport Commission and its staff have not identified what, if any, Federal law or regulation they think precludes the City, as the property owner, from restricting warrantless entry for immigration enforcement purposes to areas of the airport that are outside customs and immigration inspection areas and passenger checkpoints and that the Airport Commission has already determined are not fully public and are accessible only for limited purposes.<\/p>\n Nor has airport management give any evidence that their lawyers or the City Attorney have been directed or asked to research this question, as we have requested.<\/p>\n The Airport Commission doesn’t have to capitulate to DHS claims about the law without investigating whether they can be challenged. We don’t know how a court would rule, since no airport has tested these claims and no court has reviewed them.<\/p>\n As we said in our comments to the Airport Commission:<\/p>\n As the landlord at the airport, the city has the same authority as any landlord to limit access to airport premises and the purposes for which they may be used, including by airport tenants such as the TSA, the TSA\u2019s contractors, and CBP, except for being required (1) not to discriminate between travelers on the basis of protected attributes, expressions, opinions, or acts and (2) to allow space for TSA or TSA contractors to inspect passengers and CBP to inspect international passengers, baggage, and cargo.<\/p>\n The Airport Commission has already determined that SFO premises are not fully public and that the Airport Commission can regulate what activities are allowed where on airport property. SFO can and does limit the purposes for which SFO premises, including public areas of passenger terminals, can lawfully be used.<\/p>\n For example, Rule 12.0, of the Airport Commission rules and regulations<\/a>, \u201cWorkforce Harmony\u201d, prohibits some labor organizing activities that would otherwise be allowed in public places. Rule 13.0, \u201cFree Speech and Expressive Activities\u201d, prohibits certain activities, except with a permit, that would otherwise be allowed, as a matter of right and without a permit, in public areas.<\/p>\n So far as we can tell, however, the Airport Commission has never considered adopting a similar rule prohibiting warrantless access to or use of airport premises, outside designated checkpoints and customs and immigration inspection areas, for immigration enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n Why is limiting free speech and labor organizing at SFO to the maximum extent permitted by law a higher priority for the Airport Commission than limiting immigration enforcement at SFO to the maximum extent permitted by law?<\/p>\n Or, to put it another way, which poses a greater threat to the safety and security of travelers at SFO: free speech, labor organizing, or immigration enforcement?<\/p>\n The Airport Commission\u2019s choices of which purposes and activities to restrict on airport property, and which to allow without restriction, are directly contrary to our San Francisco values and our Sanctuary City Ordinance.<\/p>\n Allowing the TSA and\/or its contractors to inspect passengers and their baggage and allowing CBP to inspect international passengers and their baggage are required by Federal laws and regulations as a condition of operating Federally-regulated flights.<\/p>\n But outside of those areas leased to and designated for use by the TSA, TSA\u2019s contractors, and CBP for passenger screening and customs and immigration inspection, as required by Federal laws and regulations, SFO could and should \u2013 and pursuant to the Sanctuary City Ordinance must, to the maximum extent permitted by law \u2013 prohibit use of airport premises, including passenger terminals, for immigration enforcement activities, and prohibit warrantless entry to those premises by ICE or other immigration enforcement officers for immigration enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n Determining the maximum extent to which SFO can limit the permissible footprint of ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies without judicial warrants and outside passenger checkpoints and customs and immigration inspection areas will likely require consultation with your counsel, the City Attorney. We urge you to promptly request such a review by the City Attorney and to publicly release and act on their report. This should have been done as soon as the Sanctuary City Ordinance was enacted.<\/p>\n The Airport Commission and the City Atttorney should not, of course, rely on ICE, the DHS, or other DHS components for authoritative determinations of the limits of ICE authority or the authority of the airport operator and landlord to place restrictions on warrantless immigration enforcement activities outside checkpoints and inspection areas.<\/p>\n The DHS, ICE, and other DHS components have made many broad and unsupported assertions of authority as to where they can go, what they can do, and what local and state government agencies and private entities are required to do to allow or assist them to operate. Many of these claims to unbounded immigration enforcement authority have been rejected by courts, once they have been challenged and reviewed.<\/p>\n So far as we can tell, no airport owner or operator has sought judicial review of any aspect of the authority of ICE, the DHS, or other DHS components to carry out any of their activities or to require airports to permit these activities on airport premises.<\/p>\n If ICE and DHS claims have not been tested and upheld in court, or if precedents are at all unclear, the Airport Commission and the City Attorney should not hesitate to litigate to establish the authority of SFO to limit the use of airport premises and other resources for warrantless immigration enforcement activities outside inspection areas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Inadequate: <\/strong>In response to our request for the airport to post signs informing travelers of our rights and warning us about otherwise invisible and unanticipated immigration enforcement activities and risks at the airport and with air travel, the Airport Commission added a new page to its website<\/a>\u00a0 with some information about the rights of international travelers and some links to immigration resources and legal services.<\/p>\n That’s a (very small) positive step. But people being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are unlikely\u00a0 to search the airport website for advice, even if they have access to the Internet in detention, which they may not.<\/p>\n More importantly, even if the same information were prominently posted at the airport (and in an appropriate range of languages), the airport website mentions only international<\/em> flights and international<\/em> arrival procedures. It still says noting about the issue we raised in our comments as crying out for a warning posted by the airport: the threat posed by sharing with ICE of airline reservations for domestic<\/em> flights:<\/p>\n Most airline passengers don\u2019t know that information entered in domestic<\/em> airline reservations will be passed on by all airlines to the TSA and can be used by the TSA to alert ICE to intercept them at the airport, either at departure or on arrival.<\/p>\n Airlines won\u2019t tell passengers this because it might prompt some people not to fly but to travel by bus or car instead, or not to take some trips at all if the risk is too great.<\/p>\n Signs posted by the airport can\u2019t cure the failure of the TSA and CBP to complete the required notice-and-comment procedures, obtain OMB approvals, collect information directly from data subjects, or provide proper notice of their use of both international and domestic airline reservations for immigration enforcement and other purposes.<\/p>\n But signs posted by SFO could significantly mitigate the risk these illegal DHS practices pose to travelers. As the property owner, it is beyond question that SFO has the authority to post whatever truthful and lawful signs it wishes, anywhere on its property.<\/p>\n SFO can and should post clear and conspicuous signs at check-in kiosks, counters, and departure gates warning travelers that any information entered in airline reservations, including reservations for domestic flights, will be passed on to the DHS and can be used to alert ICE to target and intercept them at the airport, either at departure or on arrival.<\/p>\n The message can and should be, \u201cDon\u2019t fly, even domestically, if you don\u2019t want your airline reservations sent to ICE. If you do fly, be prepared to be targeted by ICE. Have a Plan B in case you are seized by ICE at the airport, on departure or on arrival.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unresponsive: <\/strong>The Airport Director and the Airport Commission completely ignored our requests for a review and public report on what SFO is doing to comply with the Sanctuary City Ordinance and a review by the City Attorney and public report on what SFO could do, including possible court challenges to untested DHS claims of unlimited authority, to limit warrantless access to parts of SFO for immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, records released in response to another public records request have revealed that an ICE agent left his gun in a toilet stall in a public restroom at SFO<\/a> last month, highlighting the threat posed to travelers by giving ICE warrantless free run of the airport for immigration enforcement. As we noted in our comments:<\/p>\n Immigration enforcement activities at SFO disrupt and delay airport operations, divert SFPD Airport Division officers from other tasks to protect ICE and other We’re not satisfied with lies, evasions, half measures, and preemptive capitulation by SFO to Federal demands.<\/strong><\/p>\n We’ll be back at the next meeting<\/a> of the San Francisco Airport Commission on September 15, 2026, 9 a.m., City Hall Room 416<\/a>,\u00a0 to point out how far the Airport Director’s “response” falls short of the truth, and to renew our call for action<\/a> by the Airport Commission.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the San Francisco Airport Commission meeting on August 15th, a dozen members of the public (video, Mission Local, SF Public Press) called on the Airport Commission to comply with San Francisco’s “Sanctuary City” ordinance, which prohibits use of S.F. City and County resources — including airport property and funds — for immigration enforcement. Another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21558"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21579,"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21558\/revisions\/21579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/papersplease.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nimmigration enforcement agents, traumatize travelers and airport workers, scare travelers away from SFO, and endanger the rights and freedom of San Franciscans and visitors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n