If biometric data is stolen or misused, travelers don’t have much recourse, said Alex Alben, a professor of privacy, data and cybersecurity at the law schools of the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Washington. There are no federal laws on the use of biometric data, he said, although some states are beginning to create a patchwork of legal protections, and in the European Union and Britain, companies must get permission from consumers to collect their data and must inform them. what it will be used for.
The management of facial recognition data by private companies worries Jeramie D. Scott, director of the Surveillance Monitoring Project. Electronic Privacy Information Center. The companies, she said, could be hacked or they could hand over the data to government entities, which could use it for surveillance. Some might even sell customers’ biometric information or find other ways to profit from it and bury those intentions in the fine print, Scott said, a scenario that could echo the “Black Mirror” episode.joan is horrible”, in which a fictional streaming service uses its terms and conditions agreement to hijack the life of the main character for a television series.
One company has already used facial recognition technology to exclude people from its facilities. Last year, MSG Entertainment, which owns New York’s Radio City Music Hall, banned a lawyer from seeing the Rockettes with her daughter’s scout troop because she worked for a firm the company considered troublesome.
Facial recognition software has also been shown to be less accurate for certain demographic groups, Scott said, and even with improvements, the algorithms are generally not shared or tested publicly “so we have to take the company’s word for its precision,” he said. saying.
In a recent Virgin Travel On a cruise to the Greek Islands, a passenger, Divya McDuffie, a media executive from New York, was asked to upload a selfie as part of the check-in process to help identify her as she got on and off the ship. McDuffie said she was fine with facial recognition as a security measure, but if hotel companies started using it to, for example, gauge her mood, target her with offers or guide her toward some kind of action, “absolutely ‘no’.” to that. she said, highlighting the need for transparency. “If there is no disclaimer where you can make an informed decision, it would be concerning. Where would she end up?
