S.T.O.P. Condemns CBP Facial Recognition Plan For Cars at Border

S.T.O.P. condemns CBP’s plan to build a real-time facial recognition tool photographing every passenger vehicle entering the US.

View this email in your browser For Immediate Release S.T.O.P. Condemns CBP Facial Recognition Plan For Cars at Border (New York, NY 5/7/2025) – Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group, condemns U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s plan to build a real-time facial recognition tool photographing every passenger vehicle entering the U.S. Reporting by WIRED revealed that CBP requested pitches from tech firms for the biometric entry technology, which would scan passengers’ faces and compare the photos to the travel identity documents they share and those already held by government databases. Previous efforts at using live facial recognition in vehicles led to disastrous results, as window and windshield reflections warped photos and degraded results. SEE: WIRED - US Border Agents Are Asking for Help Taking Photos of Everyone Entering the Country by Car https://www.wired.com/story/cbp-photo-everyone-in-vehicle-us-border/ "A lot of people are going to get wrongly arrested if this happens,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn.  "Real-time facial recognition is much more error prone than most forms of the technology, but using this through a windshield is a recipe for disaster. Not only is this creepy and invasive, but it’s going to make huge numbers of mistakes, falsely flagging returning vacationers and business travelers as wanted fugitives. Even if this technology were ready for prime time, it would be too dangerous to be put in the hands of the Trump Administration.” In 2019, then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo launched a controversial effort to use similar technology to scan the faces of drivers and passengers entering New York City. The effort, which S.T.O.P. condemned at the time, cost New York State millions of dollars, but was never able to identify a single usable face image given the reflection of the car windshield. SEE: Gotham Gazette - Take Down Cuomo’s Creeping Cameras https://www.gothamgazette.com/130-opinion/8450-take-down-cuomo-s-creeping-cameras The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color.   -- END -- Copyright © 2025 Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.