LOOK ME IN THE EYE Border checkpoint scans eyes and faces of departing foreigners

Posted on 02/19/2016 | About United States

The US government announced Thursday it is using eye scans and facial recognition technology for the first time to verify the identities of foreigners leaving the United States on foot at a busy San Diego border crossing with Mexico. This is the latest move to close a longstanding security gap.

Border officials in December started collecting the same information on non-citizens walking into the US through the checkpoint connecting Tijuana and San Diego. The checkout system that launched Feb. 11 aims to ensure those who enter the country leave on time and identify those who stay after their visas expire.Up to half of the people in the US illegally are believed to have overstayed their visas.Congress has long demanded biometric screening such as fingerprints, facial images or eye scans from people leaving the country, but the task poses enormous financial and logistical challenges. Privacy advocates worry the data could be misused or fall into the wrong hands.Previously, foreigners who left the country were rarely checked by authorities before walking into Mexico or Canada at ports of entry. Cameras have started photographing the eye and facial features of non-citizens leaving the country through the Otay Mesa port of entry to verify their identities on their documents.Authorities are using the trial runs to determine which technology, face or eye scans, is the fastest, most accurate and least intrusive in screening people coming and going at all land crossings along the 1,954-mile (3,145-kilometre) border with Mexico. Final results are expected this summer, with the goal of expanding the checks to all land, air and sea ports.For now, the trial run will focus only on foreigners, but it's uncertain in the future whether the programme would expand to US citizens.Foreigners checked at the border who have overstayed their visas will be allowed to continue on to Mexico, with a note on their record, said Charmaine Rodriguez, assistant port director of the Otay Mesa cargo facility. Those with criminal records or warrants could be detained.Federal officials say they will not share or retain the data collected in the trial runs, but it is not clear how the information will be used if the programme is adopted border-wide.Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the data will be increasingly shared with different agencies once it becomes the norm at checkpoints. More countries also may start using the technology on Americans to build their own biometric databases.“Certainly, experience has shown how difficult it is to secure databases,” he said.Others fear the additional screening will further clog already congested border crossings, disrupting trade and travel. Officials say the checks so far have only added about a minute to individual crossing times.Otay Mesa was selected because it is one of the busiest border crossings. Some 6,000 people leave the US on foot through the port of entry every day, while about 9,000 pedestrians enter the country through the checkpoint daily.US border officials are trying three different approaches. Some foreigners will be directed to walk by cameras that will scan the eye and face simultaneously. Others will be asked to pause and look into a camera, and a third group will put their travel documents on a reader at a kiosk and look into a camera positioned at arms' length.Americans walking into Mexico will use a separate lane at the California crossing with scanners that collect biographic information, including name and birth date, but not biometrics.