The American Union of Civil Liberties (American Civil Liberties Union or simply ACLU) complained the US Government for not disclosing details about the use of face recognition at airports (PDF).
On Thursday, the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court asking various federal agencies to hand over any files related to the use of face recognition technology at airports.
The complaint focuses on the fact that the government can use face recognition to monitor all our movements and as mentioned above because it refused to give more details about what it does with this technology.
To learn more, the ACLU is seeking details about the government's contracts with airlines and airports that have facial recognition. What does it do with biometric information and resolutions them and generally asks to learn about the effectiveness of the technology.
The ACLU says government agencies have already been spotted monitoring journalists, subjecting innocent travelers to humiliating investigations, usually targeting people of other nationalities and different political and religious beliefs.
Face recognition will be a very powerful tool for achieving such goals if allowed to remain unchecked.
The ACLU claims that its previous requests for this information have been ignored, which makes it even more concerned.
The lawsuit seeks files from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Department of Immigration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
These services are rapidly expanding the use of face recognition at borders.
A number of airlines including Delta and JetBlue partnered with CBP to develop the technology, which has scanned more than 20 millions travelers who entered and exited the USA until June 2019.
DHS has already proposed scanning American citizens at airports, despite members of Congress and civil liberties groups expressing "deep concern for privacy."
If the ACLU finally achieves something with its complaint, we could at least see what the US government is doing with the data.