CBP’s trove of biometric data is catnip for bad actors.The agency announced this week that hackers had stolen license-plate images & travelers’ ID photos from a server.The breach comes only 2 weeks after privacy scholars testified for hours on the dangers of facial-recognition technology before the House Oversight and Reform Committee calling for a nationwide ban on the technology, citing privacy and the risk of a widespread data breach. While divided on whether to step up regulation or fully ban the technology, the experts agreed that the time for reform is now.The more information about people that the government sucks up into its databases (photos, fingerprints, facial data, social-media accounts), the more attractive these databases become to nefarious actors. By 2023, the DHS aims to use facial recognition on 97% of air passengers. There are no laws preventing it from doing so.
At www.theatlantic.com
